Division 


,ES6 


THE  ^EXPOSITOR'S    BIBLE 


EDITED  BY  THE   REV. 

W.    ROBERTSON    NICOLL,    M.A.,    LL.D. 

Editor  of  "  The  Expositor  " 


THE     ACTS     OF     THE    APOSTLES 

BY 

G.     T.     STOKES,     D.D. 


APR    2    1035 


(         APR    2    1035 

VOLUME    /l\ 


NEW    YORK 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

51    EAST    TENTH    STREET 


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THE 

ACTS    OF    THE    APOSTLES 


BY  THE  REV. 

G.     T.     STOKES,     D.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY   IN   THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  DUBLIN 
AND  VICAR  OF  ALL   SAINTs',    BLACKROCK 


NEW    YORK 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

51    EAST    TENTH    STREET 
1892 


PREFACE. 


THE  following  volume  terminates  my  survey  and  ex- 
position of  the  Acts  of  the  Holy  Apostles.  I  have 
fully  explained  in  the  body  of  this  work  the  reasons  which 
led  me  to  discuss  the  latter  portion  of  that  book  more 
briefly  than  its  earlier  chapters.  I  did  this  of  set  pur- 
pose. The  latter  chapters  of  Acts  are  occupied  to  a  great 
extent  with  the  work  of  St.  Paul  during  a  comparatively 
brief  period,  while  the  first  twenty  chapters  cover  a  space 
of  well-nigh  thirty  years.  The  riot  in  Jerusalem  and  a 
few  speeches  at  Caesarea  occupy  the  larger  portion  of 
the  later  narrative,  and  deal  very  largely  with  circum- 
stances in  St.  Paul's  life,  his  conversion  and  mission  to 
the  Gentiles,  of  which  the  earlier  portion  of  this  volume 
treats  at  large.  Upon  these  topics  I  had  nothing  fresh  to 
say,  and  was  therefore  necessarily  obliged  to  refer  my 
readers  to  pages  previously  written.  I  do  not  think,  how- 
ever, that  I  have  omitted  any  topic  or  passage  suitable 
to  the  purposes  of  the  Expositor's  Bible.  Some  may 
desiderate  longer  notices  of  German  theories  concern- 
ing the  origin  and  character  of  the  Acts.  But,  then,  an 
expositor's  Bible  is  not  intended  to  deal  at  length  with 


vi  PREFACE. 

critical  theories.  Critical  commentaries  and  works  like 
Dr.  Salmon's  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament  take 
such  subjects  into  consideration  and  discuss  them  fully, 
omitting  all  mere  exposition.  My  duty  is  exposition, 
and  the  supply  or  indication  of  material  suitable  for 
expository  purposes.  If  I  had  gone  into  the  endless 
theories  supplied  by  German  ingenuity  to  explain  what 
seems  to  us  the  simplest  and  plainest  matters  of  fact 
demanding  no  explanation  whatsoever,  I  am  afraid 
there  would  have  been  little  space  left  for  exposition, 
and  my  readers  would  have  been  excessively  few. 
Those  who  are  interested  in  such  discussions,  which  are 
simply  endless,  and  will  last  as  long  as  man's  fancy 
and  imagination  continue  to  flourish,  will  find  ample 
satisfaction  in  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Dr.  Salmon's 
Introduction.  Perhaps  I  had  better  notice  one  point 
urged  by  him,  as  an  illustration  of  the  critical  methods 
of  English  common  sense.  German  critics  have  tried 
to  make  out  that  the  Acts  were  written  in  the  second 
century  in  order  to  establish  a  parallel  between  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul  when  men  wished  to  reconcile  and 
unite  in  one  common  body  the  Pauline  and  Petrine 
parties.  This  is  the  view  set  forth  at  length  by  Zeller 
in  his  work  on  the  Acts,  vol.  ii.,  p.  278,  translated  and 
published  in  the  series  printed  some  years  ago  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Theological  Translation  Fund. 
Dr.  Salmon's  reply  seems  to  me  conclusive,  as  contained 
in  the  following  passage,  I.e.,  p.  336:  "What  I  think 
proves  conclusively  that  the  making  a  parallel  between 
Peter  and  Paul  was  not  an  idea  present  to  the  author's 


PREFACE.  vii 

mind,  is  the  absence  of  the  natural  climax  of  such  a 
parallel — the  story  of  the  martyrdom  of  both  the 
Apostles.  Very  early  tradition  makes  both  Peter  and 
Paul  close  their  lives  by  martyrdom  at  Rome — the 
place  where  Rationalist  critics  generally  believe  the 
Acts  to  have  been  written.  The  stories  told  in  tolerably 
ancient  times  in  that  Church  which  venerated  with 
equal  honour  the  memory  of  either  apostle,  repre- 
sented both  as  joined  in  harmonious  resistance  to  the 
impostures  of  Simon  Magus.  And  though  I  believe 
these  stories  to  be  more  modern  than  the  latest  period 
to  which  any  one  has  ventured  to  assign  the  Acts, 
yet  what  an  opportunity  did  that  part  of  the  story 
which  is  certainly  ancient — that  both  Apostles  came  to 
Rome  and  died  there  for  the  faith  (Clem.  Rom.,  5) — 
offer  to  any  one  desirous  of  blotting  out  the  memory 
of  all  differences  between  the  preaching  of  Peter  and 
Paul,  and  of  setting  both  on  equal  pedestals  of  honour  ! 
Just  as  the  names  of  Ridley  and  Latimer  have  been 
united  in  the  memory  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
no  count  has  been  taken  of  their  previous  doctrinal 
differences,  in  the  recollection  of  their  first  testimony 
for  their  common  faith,  so  have  the  names  of  Peter  and 
Paul  been  constantly  bound  together  by  the  fact  that 
the  martyrdom  of  both  has  been  commemorated  on 
the  same  day.  And  if  the  object  of  the  author  of  the 
Acts  had  been  what  has  been  supposed,  it  is  scarcely 
credible  that  he  could  have  missed  so  obvious  an 
opportunity  of  bringing  his  book  to  its  most  worthy 
conclusion,  by  telling  how  the  two  servants  of  Christ — 


viii  PREFACE. 

all  previous  differences,  if  there  had  been  any,  re- 
conciled and  forgotten — joined  in  witnessing  a  good 
confession  before  the  tyrant  emperor,  and  encouraged 
each  other  to  steadfastness  in  endurance  to  the  end." 

But  though  I  have  not  dealt  in  any  formal  vi^ay  with 
the  critical  theories  urged  concerning  the  Acts,  I  have 
taken  every  opportunity  of  pointing  out  the  evidence 
for  its  early  date  and  genuine  character  furnished  by 
that  particular  line  of  historical  exposition  and  illustra- 
tion which  I  have  adopted.     It  will  be  at  once  seen 
how  much  indebted   I  am  in  this  department  to  the 
researches  of  modern  scholars  and  travellers,  especially 
to  those  of  Professor  Ramsay,  whose  long  residence  and 
extended  travels  in  Asia  Minor  have  given  him  special 
advantages  over  all  other  critics.     I  have  made  a  diligent 
use  of  all  his  writings,  so  far  as  they  had  appeared  up 
to  the  time  of  writing,  and  only  regret  that  I  was  not 
able   to  use  his  paper  on  St.  Paul's  second  journey, 
which  appeared  in  the  Expositor  for  October,  after  this 
work  had  been  composed  and  printed.     That  article 
seems   to   me   another   admirable    illustration    of   the 
critical    methods    used    by   our    own   home   scholars 
as  contrasted  with   those  current  abroad.      Professor 
Ramsay  does  not  set  to  work  to  spin  criticisms  out  of 
his  own  imagination  and  elaborate  theories  out  of  his 
own  inner  consciousness  even  as  a  spider  weaves  its  • 
web ;  but  he  takes  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  compares 
it   with   the   facts  of  Asia  Minor,  its  scenery,  roads, 
mountains,   ruins,  and  then  points  out  how  exactly  the 
text  answers  to  the  facts,  showing  that  the  author  of 


PREFACE.  ix 

it  wrote  at  the  time  alleged  and  must  have  been  an 
eyewitness  of  the  Apostles'  doings.  While  again  by 
a  similar  comparison  in  the  case  of  the  apocryphal  acts 
of  St.  Paul  and  Thecla  he  demonstrates  how  easily  a 
forger  fell  into  grievous  mistakes.  I  do  not  think  a 
better  illustration  can  be  found  of  the  difference  between 
sound  historical  criticism  and  criticism  based  on  mere 
imagination  than  this  article  by  Professor  Ramsay. 

In  conclusion  I  ought  to  explain  that  I  systematically 
quote  the  Fathers  whenever  I  can  out  of  the  transla- 
tions published  by  Messrs.  T.  &  T.  Clark,  or  in  the 
Oxford  Library  of  the  Fathers.  It  would  have  been 
very  easy  for  me  to  give  this  book  a  very  learned  look 
by  adding  the  references  in  Greek  or  Latin,  but  I  do 
not  think  I  should  have  thus  conduced  much  to  its 
practical  utility.  The  Fathers  are  now  a  collection  of 
works  much  spoken  of,  but  very  little  read,  and  the 
references  in  the  original  added  to  theological  works 
are  much  more  overlooked  than  consulted.  It  would 
conduce  much  to  a  sound  knowledge  of  •  primitive 
antiquity  were  the  works  translated  of  all  the  Chris- 
tian writers  who  flourished  down  to  the  triumph  of 
Christianity.  Authors  who  fill  their  pages  with  quota- 
tions in  Latin  and  Greek  which  they  do  not  translate 
forget  one  simple  fact,  that  ten  or  twenty  years  in  a 
country  parish  immersed  in  its  endless  details  make 
the  Latin  and  Greek  of  even  good  scholars  somewhat  . 
rusty.  And  if  so,  what  must  be  the  case  with  those 
who  are  not  good  scholars,  or  not  scholars  at  all, 
whether  bad  or  good?     I  am  often  surprised  noting 


X  PREFACE. 

how  much  more  exacting  from  their  readers  modern 
scholars  are  in  this  direction  than  our  forefathers  of 
two  hundred  years  ago.  Let  any  one,  for  instance, 
take  up  the  works  composed  in  English  by  Hammond 
or  Thorndike  discussing  the  subject  of  Episcopacy,  and 
it  will  be  found  that  in  every  case  when  they  use  a 
Latin,  Greek,  or  Hebrew  quotation  while  they  give  the 
original  they  always  add  the  translation.  Finally  I  have 
to  acknowledge,  what  every  page  will  show,  the  great 
assistance  I  have  derived  from  the  Lives  of  St.  Paul 
written  by  Archdeacon  Farrar,  Mr.  Lewin,  and  Messrs. 
Conybeare  &  Howson,  and  to  express  a  hope  that  this 
volume  together  with  the  previous  one  will  be  found 
helpful  by  some  as  they  strive  to  form  a  better  and  truer 
conception  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Church  of  the 
living  God  was  founded  and  built  up  amongst  men. 

GEORGE   T.   STOKES. 

All  Saints'  Vicarage,  Blackrock, 
Nov.  4th,  1892. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  TRAINING   OF   SAUL   THE   RABBI. 
Acts  vii.  58  ;  xxii.  3. 

PAGE 

St.  Paul's  Appearance  on  the  Christian  Stage  and  its  Results — The 
Tubingen  Theory — His  Parentage — Birthplace — Testimony 
of  St.  Epiphanius  —  Early  Friends  —  Education  —  Trade — 
Gamaliel  and  his  Influence — Evidence  of  Talmud — Pharisaic 
Schools — Their  Casuistry  and  Exegesis — Parallel  between 
Hagar  and  Sarah I — 21 

CHAPTER    H. 

THE  CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR. 

Acts  viii.  3  ;  ix.   1-6. 

Saul  of  Tarsus  and  St.  Stephen — Saul  and  the  Sanhedrin — Conduct 
of  Saul  when  Unconverted— Continuity  of  Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity— Saul  and  Blasphemy  of  Christ — Sense  of  Sin  com- 
patible with  Sense  of  Forgiveness — Hooker  on  the  Litany — 
Jeremy  Taylor  on  Humility — Saul's  Mission  to  Damascus — 
Domestic  Tribunal  permitted  to  the  Jews  by  the  Romans 
— Used  against  the  Men  of  the  "Way — Meaning  of  this  ex- 
pression— Influence  of  it — Saul's  Journey — Scene  of  Conversion 
— Lord  Lyttelton's  Observations  upon  St.  Patifs  Conversion — 
Supernatural  Accompaniments  appropriate  to — Apostle's  own 
Narrative — Reflections  of  the  Venerable  Bede  .         .     22 — 47 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE  NEW  CONVERT  AND  HIS  HUMAN  TEACHER. 

Acts  ix.  10,  11. 

Saul  and  the  Vision — Which  probably  produced  Ophthalmia — 
Portrait  of  St.  Paul — Ananias  of  Damascus — Straight  Street 
— St.  Chrysostom  on  the  Spiritual  Greatness  of  Ananias— 
Seventeenth-century   Travellers   in   Palestine  —  Conversation 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

between  Jesus  Christ  and  Ananias— Its  Theology — Meaning 
of  word  Saint — Protest  against  Antinomianism — St.  Paul  and 
title  Vas  Electionis — And  Doctrine  of  Election — Balance  of 
Doctrine — The  New  Convert  and  Prayer        .        .        .      48 — 67 

CHAPTER   IV. 

SAUL     AND     SINAI. 

Acts  ix.  19,  20. 

Visit  of  Ananias  to  House  of  Judas — Christ  the  True  Visitor — 
Keble's  Hymn  for  Easter  Monday — Restoration  of  Saul's  Sight 
— His  Baptism — Language  of  Ananias — Importance  of  this 
fact— Saul's  Work  in  Damascus — Narrative  in  Acts  and  in 
Galatians  —  Difficulties  —  Reconciliation  —  Saul  in  Arabia — 
Ancient  Explanations  of — Discipline  of — Value  of  Seasons  of 
Retirement — Waste  of  Vital  Spiritual  Tissues  in  Activity — 
Abuse  of  this  Principle  in  Monasticism — Celtic  Monasticism 
— Saul,  the  Vas  Electionis,  trained  like  Jesus  Christ        .     68—91 

CHAPTER  V. 

the  first  gentile  convert.* 

Acts  x.  1-6. 

The  Turning-points  of  Primitive  Church  History — Conversion  of 
Saul  and  of  Cornelius — Saul's  earliest  Ministry  at  Jerusalem — 
His  Escape  to  Tarsus — St.  Peter  and  Church  in  Joppa — 
Temporary  Peace  after  Saul's  Conversion — Caligula's  attempt 
to  erect  his  Statue  in  Jerusalem — St.  Peter  and  Simon  the' 
Tanner — Time  of  Conversion  of  Cornelius  was  Providential — 
Place,  Cassarea-by-the-Sea,  Providential — Cornelius,  a  Roman 
Centurion — The  Legions  and  Palestine — Modern  Authorities 
confirm  the  Acts — New  Testament  and  Favourable  Estimate 
of  Soldiers — Catholic  Nature  of  Christianity — Value  of  Dis- 
cipline— Lessons  Taught  by  Example  of  Cornelius         .      92 — 114 

CHAPTER   VI. 

the  petrine  vision  at  joppa. 

Acts  x.  9-15. 

St.  Peter  led  to  Joppa  Unconsciously — His  Period  of  Repose — 
Joppa  and  Missions  to  the  Gentile  World — ^Jonah — Peter  and 
the  Hour  of  Prayer — Value  of  Forms — Canonical  Hours — 
TertulUan's  Testimony — Nature  of  Peter's  Vision — Conditioned 
by  his  Natural  State — Exactly  suited  to  Destroy  his  Prejudices 
— ^John  Calvin's  View — St.  Peter  at  Caesarea — His  Sermon — 
Not  Latitudinarian,  as  some  Think — But  Truly  Catholic — Peter 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

presupposes  some  Knowledge  of  Gospel  Facts — Evidence  of 
Resurrection — Necessarily  Limited — Unless  Course  of  Human 
Affairs  was  to  be  Upset — And  God's  Usual  Laws  set  Aside — 
Outpouring  of  Holy  Ghost  on  Gentiles — Baptism  of  Cor- 
nelius  115 — 141 

CHAPTER  Vn. 

THE   HARVEST   OF   THE  GENTILES. 

Acts  xi.  26. 

Reception  of  News  of  Gentile  Conversion  at  Jerusalem — Debate 
and  Strife  with  St.  Peter — The  Early  Church  Knew  Nothing 
of  the  Privilegium  Petri — Fable  of  Pope  Marcellinus — Origin 
of  Antiochene  Church — Foundation  of  Antioch — Scenery  and 
History — Orators  and  Water  Supply — Arrival  of  Barnabas 
and  of  Saul — Invention  of  the  Name  Christians — Remarks  of 
Archbishop  Trench — The  Prophet  Agabus  and  the  Outgoings 
of  Charity         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  142 — 163 

CHAPTER  Vni. 
THE   DEFEAT  OF   PRIDE. 

Acts  xii.  1-3,  23,  24. 

Contact  of  Sacred  and  Secular  History  in  this  Chapter — Story  of 
Herod  Agrippa— Illustration  of  Principle  of  Heredity — First 
Martyrdom  among  Apostles — Character  of  James,  Son  of 
Zebedee — His  Spiritual  Eminence — His  Death  a  Real  Answer 
to  Prayer — St.  Peter's  Deliverance — Granted  to  a  Pleading 
Church — Angelic  Interference — And  the  Proprieties  of  Chris- 
tianity— Clement  of  Alexandria  and  the  Paedagogue — Herod's 
Ostentation  and  Miserable  Death  —  Testimony  of  Jose- 
phus 164 — 187 

CHAPTER  IX. 

ST.  Paul's  ordination  and  first  missionary  tour 

Acts  xiii.  2-4,  14  ;  xiv.  i,  26. 

Thirteenth  Chapter  may  be  called  the  Watershed  of  the  Acts — 
Calvin  and  St.  Paul's  Ordination — Title  Apostle  Henceforth 
Applied  to  Him — Ember  Seasons,  Reason  of — First  Fomial 
Mission  to  the  Gentile  World— Outline  of  Apostolic  Tour — 
Saul  and  Sergius  Paulus — Discoveries  of  General  Cesnola — 
St.  Paul's  Sermon  at  the  Pisidian  Antioch — Jewish  Jealousy 
and  Opposition — Iconium — Lystra  and  Greek  Legends — Dis- 
covery of  Site  of  Lystra— Roman  Police  in  Asia  Minor — 
Dialects  of  Asia  Minor — Museum  of  the  Evangelical  School  at  - 
Smyrna — St.  Paul  and  Church  Organisation        .        .      188 — 218 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  X. 

the  first  christian  council. 
Acts  xv.  i,  2,  6,  19. 

PAGE 

History  of  the  great  General  Councils — Originates  at  that  of  Jeru- 
salem— Date  and  Subject-matter — The  Controversy  about 
Circumcision — Social  Questions  springing  from  it — St.  Paul's 
Position — His  Apparent  Inconsistencies — Lessons  of  Apostolic 
Council — Early  Church  Scene  of  Controversies — No  Infallible 
Guide — Composition  of  Council — Lay  Element  in  Church 
Synods — Hooker  and  the  Church  of  England — Witness  of 
Prayer  Book — Experience  of  Irish  Church — Proceedings  of 
the  Council — Triumph  of  Gentile  Freedom.        .         .       219 — 244 

CHAPTER  XL 

APOSTOLIC   QUARRELS  AND   THE   SECOND   TOUR. 

Acts  xv,  36,  39  ;  xvi.  6,  8,  9. 

Introduction  of  Christianity  to  Greece — St.  Peter  and  his  Asserted 
Roman  Episcopate  of  Twenty-five  Years — Quarrel  between 
St.  Paul  and  St.  Barnabas — Between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter — 
Patristic  Explanations — St.  Augustine  and  St.  Jerome — St. 
Paul's  Opposition  to  Nepotism — Barnabas  and  Mark — Bles- 
sings of  Sternness — The  Wrath  of  Man  praises  God — Outline 
of  St.  Paul's  Second  Tour — Ramsay's  Historical  Geography  of 
Asia  Minor — Timothy's  Ordination — The  Gospel  among  the 
Celts — ^Jeremy  Taylor  and  the  Via  Intelligentia — The  Vision 
at  Troas 245 — 270 

CHAPTER  Xn. 

ST.   PAUL  IN    MACEDONIA. 

Acts  xvi.  29,  31  ;  xvii.   i,  2,  10. 

Ancient  Roads  and  Rome — The  Gospel  at  Philippi— History  of 
that  Town — Constitution  of  Roman  Colonies — Lydia  and 
Jewish  Oratory — Francis  de  Sales  and  Small  Congregations — 
Politics  and  Christianity — The  Apostle  before  the  Duumviri — 
The  Jailer  and  the  Earthquake — "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  Thou  shalt  be  Saved" — The  Philippian  Church  and 
Persecution — St.  Paul  at  Thessalonica  and  Bercea — The 
Politarchs 271 — 300 

CHAPTER  XHL 

ST.   PAUL   IN   GREECE. 

Acts  xvii.  16-18;  xviii.  i. 

St.  Paul  and  St.  Athanasius,  a  Parallel — Escape  to  Athens  down 
the  Thermaic  Gulf — Visit  of  Pausanias  to  that  City — Ideal 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Character  of  Athenian  Paganism — Areopagus  and  St.  Paul — 
The  Unknown  God — The  Greek  Poets — Jesus  and  the  Resur- 
rection— The  Primitive  Athenian  Church  and  its  Theology — 
Aristides  and  his  Apology — Dionysius  the  Areopagite  and  his 
reputed  Philosophy — Origin  of  Corinthian  Church  —  The 
Saintly  Tentmakers — The  Firstfruits  of  Achaia — Gallio  and 
the  Jews — Philosophy  and  Christ         ....      301 — 330 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE   EPHESIAN    CHURCH   AND   ITS   FOUNDATION. 

Acts  xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  i. 

History  of  Ephesus — Cenchrese  and  its  Church — Aquila  and  his 
Vow — Christianity  and  External  Actions — Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity confounded  by  Romans — St,  Paul's  Journey  to  Ephesus 
and  Jerusalem — Visit  to  Galatia — Ephesus  and  John's  Dis- 
ciples—^Slow  Progress  of  Gospel  in  Apostolic  Age — ApoUos 
and  Meyer's  Theory  about  Baptism — The  Baptismal  Formula 
— The  School  of  Tyrannus — Ephesian  Magic  and  its  Professors 
— Story  of  St.  Chrysostom — The  Sons  of  Sceva         .         331 — 356 

CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   EPHESIAN   RIOT  AND   A   PRUDENT  TOWN    CLERK. 

Acts  xix.  23-28. 

Duration  of  St.  Paul's  Ministry  at  Ephesus — Date  of  1st  Corin- 
thians— Diana  of  Ephesus  and  her  Persian  Worship — Weak- 
ness of  Argument  e  silentio — Demetrius  and  the  Craftsmen — 
Artemisian  Festivals  and  Christian  Sufferings — Testimony  of 
Achilles  Tatius — Martyrdom  of  Polycarp — Celtic  Conven- 
tions—  Mr.  Wood's  Discoveries  at  Ephesus  —  Gaius  Vibius 
Salutarius — Extant  Specimen  of  Ephesian  Silverwork — Speech 
of  Demetrius — The  Asiarchs  and  the  Recorder — Apostolic 
Controversy  and  its  Methods 357 — 384 

CHAPTER    XVI. 

st.  paul  and  the  christian  ministry. 

Acts  xx.  i,  7,  17-19,  28. 

St.  Paul's  Position  in  A.D.  57 — Personal  Character  of  St.  Luke's 
Narrative — Defects  of  German  Criticism — Apostle's  Second 
Visit  to  Macedonia — "  Round  about  unto  Illyricum  " — Visita- 
tion of  Corinth — Passover  at  Philippi — Holy  Communion  ftt 
Troas — The  Lord's  Day  in  the  Primitive  Church — Argument 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

from  Silence,  Dangers  of — Justin  Martyr  on  Sunday — Euchar- 
istic  Amen — Evening  Celebrations — The  Agape — Fasting 
Communion — St.  Paul's  Sermon  and  Eutychus — Miletus  and 
Charge  to  Ephesian  Elders — Its  Apologetic  Tone — St.  Paul's 
view  of  Sermons — Decay  of  Modern  Preaching — Apostolic 
Power  of  Prevision — The  Ministry  and  Personal  Religion — 
The  Holy  Ghost  and  Ordination — Origin  of  Episcopacy — 
Dr.  Hatch's  Theories  unhistorical — Irenseus  on  Bishops — 
Derived  from  Apostles — Communicatio  Idiomatum — St.  Paul's 
Farewell 385—421 

CHAPTER    XVH. 

A   PRISONER    IN    BONDS. 

Acts  xxi.  2,  3,  17,  33,  39,  40  ;  xxii.  22,  30;  xxiv.  I  ;  xxvi.  i. 

St.  Paul's  Voyage  from  Miletus  to  Jerusalem — Christianity  at  Tyre 
— "The  Seed  growing  silently" — The  Church  at  Caesarea 
and  its  Teachers — St.  Paul's  Interview  with  St.  James — The 
Nazarite  Vow — St.  Paul's  Arrest  and  Appearance  before  the 
Sanhedrin — His  Defence  before  Felix — Felix  and  Drusilla — 
Lessons  of  St.  Paul's  Vicissitudes — Agabus  and  Prophesying 
— St.  James  and  Compromise — St.  Paul  and  the  High  Priest — 
His  Quickness  and  Tact — TertuUian  on  Flight  in  Persecution — 
Quietism  and  Quakerism — St.  Paul  and  the  Herodian  Family 
— Argument  of  his  Address  before  Agrippa  and  Bernice — His 
Appeal  to  Caesar 422 — 449 

CHAPTER    XVIII. 

"IN     PERILS     ON     THE     SEA." 

Acts  xxvii.  1-3  ;  xxviii.  16. 

St.  Paul  as  a  Traveller  and  a  Prisoner — Length  of  his  Imprison- 
ment— Blessed  Results  of  his  Captivity — "The  Prisoner  of 
the  Lord  " — Teaching  of  the  Seventeenth  Sunday  after  Trinity 
— His  Captivity  Benefited — {a)  His  Personal  Religion — 
{h)  The  Church  at  Casarea— (f)  The  Church  at  Rome — 
{(i)  The  Universal  Church — Composition  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel — 
Technical  Use  of  word  Gospel — Testimony  of  Aristides  and 
Irenreus — Epistles  of  the  Captivity — Story  of  the  Voyage  to 
Rome  —  Roman  Provincial  Organisation  —  Writings  of  Mr. 
James  Smith  of  Jordanhills — Church  at  Sidon — The  Storm — 
Malta  and  Puteoli — Christianity  at  Pompeii — Christian  In- 
scription there  Discovered — St.  Paul's  Approach  to  Rome — 
Intense  Humanity  of  the  Apostle — Interview  with  the  local 
Jewish  Sanhedrin — Christianity  at  Rome — Investigations  of 
Harnack  and  Schiirer       .......  450 — 471 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    TRAINING   OF  SAUL   THE  RABBI. 

"  A  young  man  named  Saul." — Acts  vii.  58. 

"  I  am  a  Jew,  born  in  Tarsus  of  Cilicia,  but  brought  up  in  this  city, 
at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  instructed  according  to  the  strict  manner  of  the 
law  of  our  fathers,  being  zealous  for  God,  even  as  ye  all  are  this  day." 
— Acts  xxii.  3. 

THE  appearance  of  St,  Paul  upon  the  stage  of 
Christian  history  marks  a  period  of  new  develop- 
ment and  of  more  enlarged  activity.  The  most  casual 
reader  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  must  see  that  a 
personality  of  vast  power,  force,  individuality,  has  now 
entered  the  bounds  of  the  Church,  and  that  hence- 
forth St.  Paul,  his  teaching,  methods,  and  actions,  will 
throw  all  others  into  the  shade.  Modern  German  critics 
have  seized  upon  this  undoubted  fact  and  made  it  the 
foundation  on  which  they  have  built  elaborate  theories 
concerning  St.  Paul  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
Some  of  them  have  made  St.  Paul  the  inventor  of  a 
new  form  of  Christianity,  more  elaborate,  artificial,  and 
dogmatic  than  the  simple  religion  of  nature  which,  as 
they  think,  Jesus  Christ  taught.  Others  have  seen  in 
St.  Paul  the  great  rival  and  antagonist  of  St.  Peter,  and 
have  seen  in  the  Acts  a  deliberate  attempt  to  reconcile 
the  opposing  factions  of  Peter  and  Paul  by  representing 
St.  Paul's  career  as  modelled  upon   that  of  Peter's.^ 

'  See  this  portion  of  Baur's  theory  refuted  in  Dr.  Salmon's  Intro- 
VOL.  II.  I 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


These  theories  are,  we  beUeve,  utterly  groundless ;  but 
they  show  at  the  same  time  what  an  important  event 
in  early  Church  history  St.  Paul's  conversion  was,  and 
how  necessary  a  thorough  comprehension  of  his  life 
and  training  if  we  wish  to  understand  the  genesis  of 
our  holy  religion. 

Who  and  whence,  then,  was  this  enthusiastic  man 
who  is  first  introduced  to  our  notice  in  connexion  with 
St.  Stephen's  martyrdom  ?  What  can  we  glean  from 
Scripture  and  from  secular  history  concerning  his  earlier 
career  ?  I  am  not  going  to  attempt  to  do  what  Conybeare 
and  Howson  thirty  years  ago,  or  Archdeacon  Farrar  in 
later  times,  have  executed  with  a  wealth  of  learning  and 
a  profuseness  of  imagination  which  I  could  not  pretend 
to  possess.  Even  did  I  possess  them  it  would  be 
impossible,  for  want  of  space,  to  write  such  a  biography 
of  St.  Paul  as  these  authors  have  given  to  the  public. 
Let  us,  however,  strive  to  gather  up  such  details  of 
St.  Paul's  early  life  and  training  as  the  New  Testa- 
ment, illustrated  by  history,  sets  before  us.  Perhaps 
we  shall  find  that  more  is  told  us  than  strikes  the 
ordinary  superficial  reader.     His  parentage   is  known 

duction  to  the  New  Testament,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  335,  4th  ed.,  where  the 
writer  admits  a  certain  parallelism  between,  the  history  of  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul  in  the  Acts,  but  denies  that  it  was  an  invented  parallelism. 
He  remarks  on  the  next  page,  "  What  I  think  proves  decisively  that 
the  making  a  parallel  between  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  was  not  an  idea 
present  to  the  author's  mind  is  the  absence  of  the  natural  climax  of 
such  a  parallel — the  story  of  the  martyrdom  of  both  the  Apostles.  .  .  . 
If  the  object  of  the  author  of  the  Acts  had  been  what  has  been  supposed, 
it  is  scarcely  credible  that  he  could  have  missed  so  obvious  an  oppor- 
tunity of  bringing  his  book  to  its  most  worthy  conclusion,  by  telling 
how  the  two  servants  of  Christ — all  previous  differences,  if  there  had 
been  any,  reconciled  and  forgotten — joined  in  witnessing  a  good  con- 
fession before  the  tyrant  emperor,  and  encouraged  each  other  in  stead- 
fastness in  endurance  to  the  end." 


vii.  58.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI. 


to  US  from  St.  Paul's  own  statement.  His  father  and 
mother  were  Jews  of  the  Dispersion,  as  the  Jews 
scattered  abroad  amongst  the  Gentiles  were  usually  ^ 
called;  they  were  residents  at  Tarsus  in  Cilicia,  and 
by  profession  belonged  to  the  Pharisees  who  then 
formed  the  more  spiritual  and  earnest  religious  section 
of  the  Jewish  people.  We  learn  this  from  three  pas- 
sages. In  his  defence  before  the  Council,  recorded  in 
Acts  xxiii.  6,  he  tells  us  that  he  was  "  a  Pharisee,  a  son 
of  Pharisees."  There  was  no  division  in  religious 
feeling  between  the  parents.  His  home  life  and  his 
earliest  years  knew  nothing  of  religious  jars  and  strife. 
Husband  and  wife  were  joined  not  only  in  the  external 
bonds  of  marriage,  but  in  the  profounder  union  still  of 
spiritual  sentiment  and  hope,  a  memory  which  may 
have  inspired  a  deeper  meaning  begotten  of  personal 
experience  in  the  warning  delivered  to  the  Corinthians, 
"  Be  not  unequally  yoked  with  unbelievers."  Of  the 
history  of  his  parents  and  ancestors  we  know  practically 
nothing  more  for  certain,  but  we  can  glean  a  little  from 
other  notices.  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  he  belonged  to  a 
special  division  among  the  Jews,  of  which  we  have 
spoken  a  good  deal  in  the  former  volume  when  deal- 
ing with  St.  Stephen.  The  Jews  at  this  period  were 
divided  into  Hebrews  and  Hellenists  :  that  is,  Hebrews 
who  by  preference  and  in  their  ordinary  practice  spoke 
the  Hebrew  tongue,  and  Hellenists  who  spoke  Greek 
and  adopted  Greek  civilisation  and  customs.  St.  Paul 
tells  us  in  Philfppians  iii.  5  that  he  was  "  of  the  stock 
of  Israel,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  a  Hebrew  of 
Hebrews,"  a  statement  which  he  substantially  repeats 
in  2  Corinthians  xi.  22.  Now  it  was  almost  an  impos- 
sibility for  a  Jew  of  the  Dispersion  to  belong  to  the 
Hebrews.       His   lot  was  cast  in  a  foreign   land,  his 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


business  mixed  him  up  with  the  surrounding  pagans, 
so  that  the  use  of  the  Greek  language  was  an  absolute 
necessity;  while  the  universal  practice  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  in  conforming  themselves  to  Greek  customs, 
Greek  philosophy,  and  Greek  civilisation  rendered  the 
position  of  one  who  would  stand  out  for  the  old  Jewish 
national  ideas  and  habits  a  very  trying  and  a  very  peculiar 
one.  Here,  however,  comes  in  an  ancient  tradition, 
recorded  by  St.  Jerome,  which  throws  some  light  upon  the 
difficulty.  Scripture  tells  us  that  St.  Paul  was  born  at 
Tarsus.  Our  Lord,  in  His  conversation  with  Ananias 
in  Acts  ix.  1 1,  calls  him  "  Saul  of  Tarsus,"  while  again 
the  Apostle  himself  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  de- 
scribes himself  as  "  a  Jew  born  in  Tarsus.  But  then 
the  question  arises,  how  came  his  parents  to  Tarsus, 
and  how,  being  in  Tarsus,  could  they  be  described  as 
Hebrews  while  all  around  and  about  them  their 
countrymen  were  universally  Hellenists  ?  St.  Jerome 
here  steps  in  to  help  us.  He  relates,  in  his  Catalogue 
of  Illustrious  Writers,  that  "  Paul  the  Apostle,  previously 
called  Saul,  being  outside  the  number  of  the  Twelve, 
was  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  and  of  the  city  of  the 
Jewish  Gischala ;  on  the  capture  of  which  by  the 
Romans  he  migrated  with  them  to  Tarsus."  Now 
this  statement  of  Jerome,  written  four  hundred  years 
after  the  event,  is  clearly  inaccurate  in  many  respects, 
and  plainly  contradicts  the  Apostle's  own  words  that 
he  was  born  in  Tarsus. 

But  yet  the  story  probably  embodies  a  tradition  sub- 
stantially true,  that  St.  Paul's  parents  were  originally 
from  Galilee.  Galilee  was  intensely  Hebrew.  It  was 
provincial,  and  the  provinces  are  always  far  less  affected 
by  advance  in  thought  or  in  religion  than  the  towns, 
which   are   the   chosen   homes   of  innovation   and   of 


vii.  58.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI.  5 

progress.  Hellenism  might  flourish  in  Jerusalem,  but 
in  Galilee  it  would  not  be  tolerated  ;  and  the  tough, 
sturdy  Gahleans  alone  would  have  moral  and  religious 
grit  enough  to  maintain  the  old  Hebrew  customs  and 
language,  even  amid  the  abounding  inducements  to  an 
opposite  course  which  a  great  commercial  centre  like 
Tarsus  held  out.  Assuredly  our  own  experience 
affords  many  parallels  illustrating  the  religious  history 
of  St.  Paul's  family.  The  Evangelical  revival,  the 
development  of  Ritual  in  the  Church  of  England,  made 
their  mark  first  of  all  in  the  towns,  and  did  not  affect 
the  distant  country  districts  till  long  after.  The  Pres- 
byterianism  of  the  Highlands  is  almost  a  different 
religion  from  the  more  enlightened  and  more  cultured 
worship  of  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  The  Low  Church 
and  Orange  developments  of  Ulster  bring  us  back  to 
the  times  of  the  last  century,  and  seem  passing  strange 
to  the  citizens  of  London,  Manchester,  or  Dublin,  who 
first  make  their  acquaintance  in  districts  where  obsolete 
ideas  and  cries  still  retain  a  power  quite  forgotten  in 
the  vast  tide  of  life  and  thought  which  sways  the  great 
cities.  And  yet  these  rural  backwaters,  as  we  may  call 
them,  retain  their  influence,  and  show  strong  evidence 
of  life  even  in  the  great  cities ;  and  so  it  is  that  even 
in  London  and  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow  and  Dublin 
congregations  continue  to  exist  in  their  remoter  districts 
and  back  streets  where  the  prejudices  and  ideas  of  the 
country  find  full  sway  and  exercise.  The  Presbyterian- 
ism  of  the  Highlands  and  the  Orangeism  of  Ulster 
will  be  sought  in  vain  in  fashionable  churches,  but  in 
smaller  assemblies  they  will  be  found  exercising  a 
sway  and  developing  a  life  which  will  often  astonish  a 
superficial  observer. 

So  it  was  doubtless  in  Tarsus.     The    Hebrews   of 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Galilee  would  delight  to  separate  themselves.  They 
would  look  down  upon  the  Hellenism  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen  as  a  sad  falling  away  from  ancient  ortho- 
doxy, but  their  declension  would  only  add  a  keener 
zest  to  the  zeal  with  which  the  descendants  of  the 
Hebrews  of  Gischala,  even  in  the  third  and  fourth 
generations,  as  it  may  have  been,  would  retain  the 
ancient  customs  and  language  of  their  Galilean  fore- 
fathers. ^ 

St.  Paul  and  his  parents  might  seem  to  an  outsider 
mere  Hellenists,  but  their  Galilean  origin  and  training 
enabled   them    to    retain    the  intenser  Judaism  which 

'  The  tradition  mentioned  by  St.  Jerome  is  not  the  only  one  which 
deals  with  the  early  life  of  St.  Paul.  Another  very  learned  writer  of 
the  same,  or  perhaps  we  should  rather  say  of  a  still  earlier,  period  was 
St.  Epiphanius,  the  historian  of  Heresies  and  bishop  of  Constantia,  or 
Salamis,  in  Cyprus.  He  wrote  a  great  work  describing  the  various 
heresies  which  had  sprung  up  in  the  Church,  contaming  much  valuable 
information  which  his  research  and  early  date  enabled  him  to  incorporate 
in  his  pages.  He  describes,  amongst  others,  the  Ebionites,  telling 
us  of  their  hostility  to  St.  Paul  and  of  the  charges  they  brought  against 
him.  The  Ebionites  denied  that  he  was  a  Jew  at  all.  The  words  of 
Epiphanius  are  "  They  say  that  he  was  a  Greek,  and  sprung  from  the 
Gentiles,  and  then  afterwards  became  a  proselyte,"  in  opposition  to 
which  he  quotes  the  Apostle's  own  words  in  Phil.  iii.  5  and  in  2  Cor. 
xi.  22.  Epiphanius  then  proceeds  to  explain  how  St.  Paul  might  have 
been  bom  in  Tarsus  and  yet  have  been  a  Jew  by  nation,  because 
that,  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes  and  at  other  times,  vast  numbers  of 
the  Jews  had  been  dispersed  as  captives  among  the  Gentiles.  See 
Epiphanius,  in  Corpus  Ha:reseologicum,  Ed.  Oehler,  vol.  ii.,  p.  283. 
Perlin,  1859.  This  is  a  good  instance  how  the  Jewish  hostility,  which 
pursued  St.  Paul  through  life,  had  not  quite  died  out  three  centuries 
later.  Epiphanius  was  born  about  A.D.  310.  He  wrote  his  work  on 
Early  Heresies  about  a.d.  375,  calling  it  Fanarion,  or,  as  he  himself 
explains  in  his  introductory  epistle,  the  Medicine  Chest,  full  of  remedies 
against  the  bite  of  the  Old  Serpent.  Epiphanius  must  have  had  a  great 
store  of  early  literature  at  his  command  which  has  now  completely, 
perished.  See  a  long  and  critical  account  of  him  and  his  writings, 
written  by  Dr.  R.  A.  Lipsius,  in  the  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  vol.  ii. 


vii.  58.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI.  ^ 

qualified  the  Apostle  to  describe  himself  as  not  only  of 
the  stock  of  Israel,  but  as  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews. 

St.  Paul's  more  immediate  family  connexions  have 
also  some  light  thrown  upon  them  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. We  learn,  for  instance,  from  Acts  xxiii.  16,  that 
he  had  a  married  sister,  who  probably  lived  at  Jerusalem, 
and  may  have  been  even  a  convert  to  Christianity  ;  for 
we  are  told  that  her  son,  having  heard  of  the  Jewish 
plot  to  murder  the  Apostle,  at  once  reported  it  to  St. 
Paul  himself,  who  thereupon  put  his  nephew  into  com- 
munication with  the  chief  captain  in  whose  custody  he 
lay.  While  again,  in  Romans  xvi.  7,  1 1,  he  sends 
salutations  to  Andronicus,  Junias,  and  Herodion,  his 
kinsmen,  who  were  residents  in  Rome ;  and  in  verse 
21  of  the  same  chapter  joins  Lucius  and  Jason  and 
Sosipater,  his  kinsmen,  with  himself  in  the  Christian 
wishes  for  the  welfare  of  the  Roman  Church,  with 
which  he  closes  the  Epistle.  It  is  said,  indeed,  that 
this  may  mean  simply  that  these  men  were  Jews,  and 
that  St.  Paul  regarded  all  Jews  as  his  kinsmen.  But 
this  notion  is  excluded  by  the  form  of  the  twenty- 
first  verse,  where  he  first  sends  greetings  from 
Timothy,  whom  St.  Paul  dearly  loved,  and  who  was 
a  circumcised  Jew,  not  a  proselyte  merely,  but  a 
true  Jew,  on  his  mother's  side,  at  least;  and  then 
the  Apostle  proceeds  to  name  the  persons  whom  he 
designates  his  kinsmen.  St.  Paul  evidently  belonged 
to  a  family  of  some  position  in  the  Jewish  world,  whose 
ramifications  were  dispersed  into  very  distant  quarters 
of  the  empire.  Every  scrap  of  information  which  we 
can  gain  concerning  the  early  life  and  associations  of 
such  a  man  is  very  precious ;  we  may  therefore  point 
out  that  we  can  even  get  a  glimpse  of  the  friends  and 
acquaintances  of  his  earliest  days.    Barnabas  the  Levite 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


was  of  Cyprus,  an  island  only  seventy  miles  distant 
from  Tarsus.  In  all  probability  Barnabas  may  have 
resorted  to  the  Jewish  schools  of  Tarsus,  or  may  have 
had  some  other  connexions  with  the  Jewish  colony  of 
that  city.  Some  such  early  friendship  may  have  been 
the  link  which  bound  Paul  to  Barnabas  and  enabled 
the  latter  to  stand  sponsor  for  the  newly  converted 
Saul  when  the  Jerusalem  Church  was  yet  naturally 
suspicious  of  him.  "  And  when  he  was  come  to  Jeru- 
salem, he  assayed  to  join  himself  to  the  disciples :  and 
they  were  all  afraid  of  him,  not  believing  that  he  was  a 
disciple.  But  Barnabas  took  him,  and  brought  him  to 
the  apostles  "  (Acts  ix.  26,  27).  This  ancient  friend 
ship  enabled  Barnabas  to  pursue  the  Apostle  with  those 
offices  of  consolation  which  his  nascent  faith  demanded, 
He  knew  Saul's  boyhood  haunts,  and  therefore  it  is  we 
read  in  Acts  xi.  25  that  "  Barnabas  went  forth  to 
Tarsus  to  seek  for  Saul "  when  a  multitude  of  the 
Gentiles  began  to  pour  into  the  Church  of  Antioch. 
Barnabas  knew  his  old  friend's  vigorous,  enthusiastic 
character,  his  genius,  his  power  of  adaptation,  and 
therefore  he  brought  him  back  to  Antioch,  where  for  a 
whole  year  they  were  joined  in  one  holy  brotherhood 
of  devout  and  successful  labour  for  their  Master.  The 
friendships  and  love  of  boyhood  and  of  youth  received 
a  new  consecration  and  were  impressed  with  a  loftier 
ideal  from  the  example  of  Saul  and  of  Barnabas. 

Then  again  there  are  other  friends  of  his  youth  to 
whom  he  refers.  Timothy's  family  lived  at  Lystra, 
and  Lystra  was  directly  connected  with  Tarsus  by  a 
great  road  which  ran  straight  from  Tarsus  to  Ephesus, 
offering  means  for  that  frequent  communication  in 
which  the  Jews  ever  delighted.  St.  Paul's  earliest 
memories  carried  him  back  to  the  devout  atmosphere 


vii.  s8.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI  9 

of  the  pious  Jewish  family  at  Lystra,  which  he  had 
long  known,  where  Lois  the  grandmother  and  Eunice 
the  mother  had  laid  the  foundations  of  that  spiritual 
life  which  under  St.  Paul's  own  later  teaching  flourished 
so  wondrously  in  the  life  of  Timothy/  Let  us  pass  on, 
however,  to  a  period  of  later  development.  St.  Paul's 
earliest  teaching  at  first  was  doubtless  that  of  the  home. 
As  with  Timothy  so  with  the  Apostle ;  his  earliest 
religious  teacher  was  doubtless  his  mother,  who  from 
his  infancy  imbued  him  with  the  great  rudimentary 
truths  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  both  the  Jewish  and 
the  Christian  faith.  His  father  too  took  his  share. 
He  was  a  Pharisee,  and  would  be  anxious  to  fulfil 
every  jot  and  tittle  of  the  law  and  every  minute  rule 
which  the  Jewish  doctors  had  deduced  by  an  attention 
and  a  subtlety  concentrated  for  ages  upon  the  text  of 
the  Old  Testament.  And  one  great  doctor  had  laid 
down,  "When  a  boy  begins  to  speak,  his  father  ought 
to  talk  with  him  in  the  sacred  language,  and  to  teach 
him  the  law  " ;  a  rule  which  would  exactly  fall  in  with 
his  father's  natural  inclination.^  He  was  a  Hebrew  of 
the  Hebrews,  though  dwelling  among  Hellenists.  He 
prided  himself  on  speaking  the  Hebrew  language  alone, 
and  he  therefore  would  take  the  greatest  pains  that  the 
future  Apostle's  earliest  teachings  should  be  in  that  same 
sacred  tongue,  giving  him  from  boyhood  that  command 
over  Hebrew  and  its  dialects  which  he  afterwards  turned 
to  the  best  of  uses. 

At  five   years  old  Jewish    children   of  parents   like 

'  See  2  Tim.  i.  5,  and  iii.  14,  15.  It  is  evident  that  St.  Pauls 
language  implies  an  acquaintance  with  Timothy's  family  of  very  long 
standing. 

'^  Schcettgen's  Hor.  Hehr.,  vol.  i-,  p.  89 ;  Lewin's  St.  Paul,  vol.  i., 
p.  7. 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


St.  Paul's  advanced    to   the   direct    study  of  the    law 
under  the  guidance  of  some  doctor,  whose  school  they 
daily  attended,  as  another  rabbi  had  expressly  enacted, 
"  At  five  years  old  a  boy  should  apply  himself  to  the 
study  of  Holy  Scripture."     Between  five  and  thirteen 
Saul  was  certainly  educated  at  Tarsus,  during  which 
period    his   whole    attention    was    concentrated    upon 
sacred    learning    and    upon    mechanical    or    industrial 
training.     It  was  at  this  period  of  his  life  that  St.  Paul 
must    have    learned    the    trade    of  tentmaking,    which 
during  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life  stood  him  in  such 
good  stead,  rendering  him  independent  of  all  external 
aid  so    far   as    his    bodily  wants  were    concerned.     A 
question  has  often  been  raised  as  to  the  social  position 
of  St.  Paul's  family ;  and  people,  bringing  their  Western 
ideas  with  them,  have  thought  that  the  manual  trade 
which  he  was    taught  betokened    their    humble    rank. 
But   this    is  quite  a  mistake.     St.   Paul's  family  must 
have  occupied    at   least   a  fairly   comfortable   position, 
when  they  were  able  to  send  a  member  of  their  house 
to  Jerusalem  to  be  taught  in  the  most  celebrated  rab- 
binical school  of  the  time.     But  it  was  the  law  of  that 
school — and  a  very  useful  law  it  was  too — that  every 
Jew,  and  especially  every  teacher,  should  possess  a  trade 
by  which  he  might  be  supported  did  necessity  call  for 
it.     It  was  a  common  proverb  among  the  Jews  at  that 
time  that  "  He  who  taught  not  his  son  a  trade  taught 
him  to  be  a  thief."     "  It  is  incumbent  on  the  father  to 
circumcise  his  son,  to  redeem  him,  to  teach   him  the 
law,  and  to  teach  him  some  occupation,  for,  as  Rabbi 
Judah   saith,  whosoever    teacheth    not    his    son    to  do 
some  work  is  as  if  he  taught  him  robbery."     "  Rabbin 
Gamaliel  saith.   He  that  hath  a  trade  in  his  hand,  to 
what   is  he  like?     He   is   like    to  a  vineyard    that    is 


vii.  58.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL   THE  RABBI.  ii 

fenced."  Such  was  the  authoritative  teaching  of  the 
schools,  and  Jewish  practice  was  in  accordance  there- 
with. Some  of  the  most  celebrated  rabbis  of  that 
time  were  masters  of  a  mechanical  art  or  trade.  The 
Vice-president  of  the  Sanhedrin  was  a  merchant  for 
four  years,  and  then  devoted  himself  to  the  study 
of  the  law.  One  rabbi  was  a  shoemaker;  Rabbi 
Juda,  the  great  Cabbalist,  was  a  tailor ;  Rabbi  Jose 
was  brought  up  as  a  tanner ;  another  rabbi  as  a 
baker,  and  yet  another  as  a  carpenter.^  And  so  as  a 
preparation  for  the  office  and  life  work  to  which  his 
father  had  destined  him,  St.  Paul  during  his  earUer 
years  was  taught  one  of  the  common  trades  of  Tarsus, 
which  consisted  in  making  tents  either  out  of  the  hair 
or  the  skin  of  the  Angora  goats  which  browsed  over  the 
hills  of  central  Asia  Minor.  It  was  a  trade  that  was 
common  among  Jews.  Aquila  and  his  wife  Priscilla 
were  tentmakers,  and  therefore  St.  Paul  united  himself 
to  them  and  wrought  at  his  trade  in  their  company  at 
Corinth  (Acts  xviii.  3).  It  has  often  been  asserted  that 
at  this  period  of  his  life  St.  Paul  must  have  studied 
Greek  philosophy  and  literature,  and  men  have  pointed 
to  .  his  quotations  from  the  Greek  poets  Aratus, 
Epimenides,    and    Menander    to    prove    the   attention 

'  Josephus,  Antiqq.,  XVIII.,  ix.,  i,  says  of  certain  Jews  of  Babylon, 
"Now  there  were  two  men,  Asineus  and  Anileus,  brethren  to  one 
another.  They  were  destitute  of  a  father,  and  their  mother  put  them 
to  learn  the  art  of  weaving  curtains,  it  not  being  esteemed  a  disgrace 
among  them  for  men  to  be  weavers  of  cloth."  Then  we  find  in  the 
New  Testament  Simon  of  Joppa  was  a  tanner,  Aquila  a  tentmaker, 
the  apostles  fishermen,  and  our  Lord  a  carpenter.  See  a  long  note  on 
this  subject  by  Mr.  Lewin  in  his  Life  of  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  p.  8.  Mas- 
sutius,  a  Jesuit  commentator  on  St.  Paul's  life,  lib.  i.,  cap.  iii.,  notices 
that  Charlemagne,  according  to  his  biographer  Eginhard,  would  have 
his  sons  and  daughters  taught  some  mechanical  trade. 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


which  the  Apostle  must  have  bestowed  upon  them.^ 
Tarsus  was  certainly  one  of  the  great  universities  of 
that  age,  ranking  in  the  first  place  along  with  Athens 
and  Alexandria.  So  great  was  its  fame  that  the  Roman 
emperors  even  were  wont  to  go  to  Tarsus  to  look 
for  tutors  to  instruct  their  sons.  But  Tarsus  was  at 
the  very  same  time  one  of  the  most  morally  de- 
graded spots  within  the  bounds  of  the  Roman  world, 
and  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  a  strict  Hebrew,  a 
stern  Pharisee,  would  have  allowed  his  son  to  en- 
counter the  moral  taint  involved  in  freely  mixing  with 
such  a  degraded  people  and  in  the  free  study  of  a 
literature  permeated  through  and  through  with  sen- 
suality and  idolatry.  St.  Paul  doubtless  at  this  early 
period  of  his  life  gained  that  colloquial  knowledge  of 
Greek  which  was  every  day  becoming  more  and  more 
necessary  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  secular  life  all 
over  the  Roman  Empire,  even  in  the  most  backward 
parts  of  Palestine.^  But  it  is  not  hkely  that  his 
parents  would  have  sanctioned  his  attendance  at  the 
lectures  on  philosophy  and  poetry  delivered  at  the 
University  of  Tarsus,  where  he  would  have  been  initiated 
into  all  the  abominations  of  paganism  in  a  style  most 
attractive  to  human  nature. 

At  thirteen  years  of  age,  or  thereabouts,  young  Saul, 
having  now  learned  all  the  sacred  knowledge  which 
the  local  rabbis  could  teach,  went  up  to  Jerusalem 
just  as  our  Lord  did,  to  assume  the  full  obligations 
of  a   Jew  and  to    pursue    his  higher   studies    at    the 


'  See  Acts  xvii.  28  ;  Titus  i.  12;  I  Cor.  xv.  33. 

'^  See  an  article  on  ' '  Greek  the  Language  of  Galilee  in  the  time  of 
Christ,"  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Abbott,  Professor  of  Hebrew  in  the  University 
of  Dublin,  in  his  Essays  chiefly  on  the  Original  Texts  of  the  Old  and 
Neui  Testaments.     London,  189 1. 


vii.  58.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI.  13 

great  Rabbinical  University  of  Jerusalem.  To  put  it 
in  modern  language,  Saul  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to 
be  confirmed  and  admitted  to  the  full  privileges  and 
complete  obligations  of  the  Levitical  Law,  and  he  also 
went  up  to  enter  college.  St.  Paul  himself  describes  the 
period  of  life  on  which  he  now  entered  as  that  in  which 
he  was  brought  up  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel.  We  have 
already  touched  in  a  prior  volume  upon  the  subject  of 
Gamaliel's  history  and  his  relation  to  Christianity,  but 
here  it  is  necessary  to  say  something  of  him  as  a 
teacher,  in  which  capacity  he  laid  the  foundations  of 
modes  of  thought  and  reasoning,  the  influence  of  which 
moulded  St.  Paul's  whole  soul  and  can  be  traced  all 
through  St.  Paul's  Epistles, 

Gamaliel  is  an  undoubtedly  historical  personage. 
The  introduction  of  him  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is 
simply  another  instance  of  that  marvellous  historical 
accuracy  which  every  fresh  investigation  and  discovery 
show  to  be  a  distinguishing  feature  of  this  book.  The 
Jewish  Talmud  was  not  committed  to  writing  for  more 
than  four  centuries  after  Gamaliel's  time,^  and  yet  it 
presents  Gamaliel  to  us  in  exactly  the  same  light  as 
the  inspired  record  does,  telling  us  that  "  with  the  death 
of  Gamaliel  I.  the  reverence  for  the  Divine  law  ceased, 
and  the  observance  of  purity  and  abstinence  departed." 
Gamaliel    came   of  a    family   distinguished    in   Jewish 

'  Basnage,  in  his  History  of  the  Jews,  translated  by  Thomas  Taylor, 
Book  III.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  168  (London,  1708),  states,  "  It  is  agreed  by  the 
generality  of  Jewish  and  Christian  doctors  that  the  Talmud  was  com- 
pleted in  the  505th  year  of  the  Christian  ^ra."  Cf.  Serarius,  De 
Rabbinis,  Lib.  I.,  c.  ix.,  p.  251  ;  Bartolocci,  Bibl.  Rabbin.,  t.  i.,  p.  488, 
t.  iii.,  p.  359  ;  Mdrinus,  Exerc.  Bibl.,  Lib.  II.,  ex.  6,  c.  ii.  and  iii.,  p.  294. 
Schafif's  Encydopccdia  of  Historical  Theology,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  2292-96,  has 
a  good  article  on  the  Talmud,  giving  a  long  list  of  authorities  to  which 
reference  may  be  made  by  any  one  interested  in  this  subject. 


14  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

history  both  before  and  after  his  own  time.  He  was 
of  the  royal  House  of  David,  and  possessed  in  this  way 
great  historical  claims  upon  the  respect  of  the  nation. 
His  grandfather  Hillel  and  his  father  Simeon  were 
celebrated  teachers  and  expounders  of  the  law.  His 
grandfather  had  founded  indeed  one  of  the  leading 
schools  of  interpretation  then  favoured  by  the  rabbis. 
His  father  Simeon  is  said  by  some  to  have  been  the 
aged  man  who  took  up  the  infant  Christ  in  his  arms 
and  blessed  God  for  His  revealed  salvation  in  the 
words  of  the  Nunc  Dimittis  ;  while,  as  for  Gamaliel" 
himself,  his  teaching  was  marked  by  wisdom,  prudence, 
liberality,  and  spiritual  depth  so  far  as  such  qualities 
could  exist  in  a  professor  of  rabbinical  learning. 
Gamaliel  was  a  friend  and  contemporary  of  Philo,  and 
this  fact  alone  must  have  imported  an  element  of 
liberality  into  his  teaching.  Philo  was  a  widely  read 
scholar  who  strove  to  unite  the  philosophy  of  Greece 
to  the  religion  of  Palestine,  and  Philo's  ideas  must  have 
permeated  more  or  less  into  some  at  least  of  the  schools 
of  Jerusalem,  so  that,  though  St.  Paul  may  not  have 
come  in  contact  with  Greek  literature  in  Tarsus,  he 
may  very  probably  have  learned  much  about  it  in  a 
Judaised,  purified,  spiritualised  shape  in  Jerusalem, 
But  the  influence  exercised  on  St.  Paul  by  Gamaliel 
and  through  him  by  Philo,  or  men  of  his  school,  can 
be  traced  in  other  respects.^ 

The  teaching  of  Gamaliel  was  as  spiritual,  I  have 
said,  as  rabbinical  teaching  could  have  been ;  but  this 
is  not  saying  very  much  from  the  Christian  point  of 

'  Philo  is  the  subject  of  a  very  long  and  learned  article  by  Dr. 
Edersheim  in  Smith's  Did.  Christ.  Biog.,  vol.  iv.,  w^ith  which  may  be 
compared  a  shorter  article  in  SchafTs  Encyclopedia  of  Hist.  Theol., 
vol.  ii. 


vii.  58.]     THE   TRAINING  OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI.  15 

view.  The  schools  at  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of  Gama- 
liel were  wholly  engaged  in  studies  of  the  most  weari- 
some, narrow,  petty,  technical  kind.  Dr.  Farrar  has 
illustrated  this  subject  with  a  great  wealth  of  learning 
and  examples  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  his  Life  of 
St.  Paul.  The  Talmud  alone  shows  this,  throwing 
a  fearful  light  upon  the  denunciations  of  our  Lord  as 
regards  the  Pharisees,  for  it  devotes  a  whole  treatise 
to  washings  of  the  hands,  and  another  to  the  proper 
method  of  killing  fowls.  The  Pharisaic  section  of  the 
Jews  held,  indeed,  that  there  were  two  hundred  and 
forty-eight  commandments  and  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  prohibitions  involved  in  the  Jewish  Law,  all 
of  them  equally  binding,  and  all  of  them  so  searching 
that  if  only  one  solitary  Jew  could  be  found  who  for 
one  day  kept  them  all  and  transgressed  in  no  one 
direction,  then  the  captivity  of  God's  people  would  cease 
and  the  Messiah  would  appear.^ 

I  am  obliged  to  pass  over  this  point  somewhat 
rapidly,  and  yet  it  is  a  most  important  one  if  we  desire 
to  know  what  kind  of  training  the  Apostle  received;  for, 
no  matter  how  God's  grace  may  descend  and  the  Divine 
Spirit  may  change  the  main  directions  of  a  man's  life,  he 
never  quite  recovers  himself  from  the  effects  of  his  early 
teaching.  Dr.  Farrar  has  bestowed  much  time  and 
labour  on  this  point.  The  following  brief  extract  from 
his  eloquent  words  will  give  a  vivid  idea  of  the  end- 
less puerilities,  the  infinite  questions  of  pettiest,  most 
minute,  and  most  subtle  bearing  with  which  the  time 
of  St.  Paul  and  his  fellow-students  must  have  been 
taken  up,  and  which  must  have  made  him  bitterly  feel 


'  These  facts  throw  much  light  upon  our  Lord's  words  in  Matt.  xv. 
1-9  and  xxii.  34-40. 


i6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

in  the  depths  of  his  inmost  being  that,  though  the  law 
may  have  been  originally  intended  as  a  source  of  life,  it 
had  been  certainly  changed  as  regards  his  own  particular 
case,  and  had  become  unto  him  an  occasion  of  death. 

"  Moreover,  was  there  not  mingled  with  all  this 
nominal  adoration  of  the  Law  a  deeply  seated  hypo- 
crisy, so  deep  that  it  was  in  a  great  measure  uncon- 
scious ?  Even  before  the  days  of  Christ  the  rabbis 
had  learnt  the  art  of  straining  out  gnats  and  swallowing 
camels.  They  had  long  learnt  to  nullify  what  they 
professed  to  defend.  The  ingenuity  of  Hillel  was 
quite  capable  of  getting  rid  of  any  Mosaic  regulation 
which  had  been  found  practically  burdensome.  Phari- 
sees and  Sadducees  alike  had  managed  to  set  aside 
in  their  own  favour,  by  the  devices  of  the  mix- 
tures, all  that  v;as  disagreeable  to  themselves  in  the 
Sabbath  scrupulosity.^  The  fundamental  institution 
of  the  Sabbatic  year  had  been  stultified  by  the  mere 
legal  fiction  of  the  Prosbol.^  Teachers  who  were  on 
the   high  road  to  a  casuistry  which    could    construct 

'  The  rabbinical  device  of  mixtures  is  fully  explained  in  Buxtorf's 
Lexicon,  co\.  1657,  Ed.  Basil  (1639),  or  in  KXtio's  Biblical EncyclopcEclia, 
under  the  article  "  Sabbath."  The  Talmud  had  a  special  treatise  called 
TrcLctatus  Mixtorum,  which  taught  how,  for  instance,  dwellings  might 
be  mixed  or  mingled  so  as  to  avoid  technical  breaches  of  the  Sabbatical 
law.  Planks  were  laid  across  intervening  residences,  so  that  houses  at 
a  very  great  distance  might  be  brought  into  touch  and  connexion,  and 
thus  regarded  as  one  common  dwelling  for  a  number  of  people  who 
wished  for  a  common  feast  on  the  Sabbath.  This  was  called  Mixtio 
conclavium.  It  was  simply  one  of  those  wretched  devices  to  which 
casuistry  always  leads ;  something  like  the  rules  for  banquets  on  fast 
days,  which  we  find  in  Lacroix,  Manners  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  170, 
where  a  most  sumptuous  Episcopal  banquet  is  described.  It  was  given 
on  a  fast  day,  therefore  no  flesh  is  included  ;  but  its  place  was  amply 
supplied  by  rare  fish  and  other  dainties  :  see  G.  T.  Stokes,  Ireland  and 
Anglo-Norman  Church,  p.  143. 

^  Prosbol  is  simply  a  transliteration  into  Hebrew  of  two  Greek  words, 


vii.58.]     THE   TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI.  17 


rules  out  of  every  superfluous  particle,  had  found  it 
easy  to  win  credit  for  ingenuity  by  elaborating  pre- 
scriptions to  which  Moses  would  have  listened  in  mute 
astonishment.  If  there  be  one  thing  more  definitely 
laid  down  in  the  Law  than  another,  it  is  the  unclean- 
ness  of  creeping  things  ;  yet  the  Talmud  assures  us  that 
'  no  one  is  appointed  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrin  who 
does  not  possess  sufficient  ingenuity  to  prove  from 
the  written  Law  that  a  creeping  thing  is  ceremonially 
clean ' ;  and  that  there  was  an  unimpeachable  disciple 
at  Jabne  who  could  adduce  one  hundred  and  fifty 
arguments  in  favour  of  the  ceremonial  cleanness  of 
creeping  things.  Sophistry  like  this  was  at  work  even 
in  the  days  when  the  young  student  of  Tarsus  sat  at 
the  feet  of  Gamaliel ;  and  can  we  imagine  any  period  of 
his  life  when  he  would  not  have,  been  wearied  by  a 
system  at  once  so  meaningless,  so  stringent,  and  so 
insincere  ?  " 

These  words  are  true,  thoroughly  true,  in  their  ex- 
tremest  sense.  Casuistry  is  at  all  times  a  dangerous 
weapon  with  which  to  play,  a  dangerous  science  upon 
which  to  concentrate  one's  attention.  The  mind  is  so 
pleased  with  the  fascination  of  the  precipice  that  one 
is  perpetually  tempted  to  see  how  near  an    approach 


ivpbs  ^ovK-qv.  The  Jewish  Law  enacted  a  cancelling  of  all  debts  in  the 
Sabbatic  year  on  the  part  of  Jews  towards  their  brethren.  This 
enactment  was  found  to  hinder  commerce  about  the  time  of  Hillel — i.e., 
75  years  B.C.  The  rich  would  not  lend  to  the  poor  on  account  of  the 
Sabbatical  year.  So  the  doctors  devised  the  Prosbol,  which  was  a 
declaration  to  the  effect  that  the  Sabbatical  year  was  not  to  affect  the 
debt.  There  was  a  legal  fiction  invented  which  made  void  the  law. 
The  creditor  said  to  the  debtor,  "  In  accordance  with  the  Sabbatical 
year  I  reniit  thee  the  debt,"  and  then  the  debtor  replied,  "  Ne\'ertheless 
I  wish  to  pay  it,"  and  then  the  creditor  was  free  from  the  obligation  of 
Deut.  XV, 

VOL    II.  2 


i8  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


can  be  made  without  a  catastrophe,  and  then  the  catas- 
trophe happens  when  it  is  least  expected.     But  when 
the  casuist's  attention  is  concentrated  upon  one  volume 
like   the  law  of  Moses,   interpreted    in    the   thousand 
methods    and    combinations    open    to    the    luxuriant 
imagination   of  the   East,   then    indeed   the   danger    is 
infinitely  increased,    and   we   cease  to  wonder   at   the 
vivid,  burning,  scorching  denunciations  of  the  Lord  as 
He    proclaimed    the    sin    of    those  who    enacted    that 
"  Whosoever  shall  swear  by  the  temple,  it  is  nothing  ; 
but  whosoever  shall  swear  by  the  gold  of  the  temple, 
he  is  a  debtor."     St.  Paul's  whole  time  must  have  been 
taken  up  in  the  school  of  Gamaliel  with  an  endless  study 
of  such  casuistical  trifles ;   and  yet  that  period  of  his 
life  left  marks  which  we  can  clearly  trace  throughout  his 
writings.     The  method,  for  instance,  in  which  St.  Paul 
quotes    the    Old   Testament    is    thoroughly  rabbinical. 
It  was  derived  from  the  rules  prevalent  in  the  Jewish 
schools,  and  therefore,  though  it   may  seem    to  us  at 
times  forced  and  unnatural,  must  have  appeared  to  St. 
Paul  and  to  the  men  of  his  time  absolutely  conclusive. 
When  reading  the  Scriptures  we  Westerns  forget  the 
great  difference  between  Orientals  and  the  nations  of 
Western  Europe.     Aristotle  and  his  logic  and  his  logical 
methods,  with  major  and  minor  premises  and  conclusions 
following  therefrom,  absolutely  dominate  our  thoughts. 
The  Easterns  knew  nothing  of  Aristotle,  and  his  methods 
availed  nothing  to  their  minds.     They  argued  in  quite 
a   different    style,   and   used  a  logic   which   he  would 
have  simply  scorned.     Analogy,   allegory,  illustration, 
form  the  staple  elements  of  Eastern  logic,  and  in  their 
use    St.    Paul    was    elaborately    trained    in    Gamaliel's 
classes,  and  of  their  use  his  writings  furnish  abundant 
examples  ;  the  most  notable  of  which  will  be  found  in 


vii.  58.]     THE    TRAINING   OF  SAUL    THE  RABBI.  19 

his  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  events  of  the  wilder- 
ness journey  of  Israel  in  I  Corinthians  x.  1-4,  where 
the  pillar  of  cloud,  and  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea,  and 
the  manna,  and  the  smitten  rock  become  the  emblems 
and  types  of  the  Christian  Sacraments ;  and  again,  in 
St.  Paul's  mystical  explanation  of  Galatians  iv.  21-31, 
where  Hagar  and  Sarah  are  represented  as  typical  of 
the  two  covenants,  the  old  covenant  leading  to  spiritual 
bondage  and  the  new  introducing  to  gospel  freedom.^ 

These,  indeed,  are  the  most  notable  examples  of  St. 
Paul's  method  of  exegesis  derived  from  the  school  of 

'  The  parallel  between  Ilagar  and  Sarah  is  drawn  out  at  full  length 
after  the  i-abbinical  method  in  Basnage's  History  of  the  Jnvs  (Taylor's 
translation),  book  iii.,  ch.  22  ;  in  Lightfoot's  Galatians,  pp.  178,  179, 
189-99,  and  Farrar's  St.  Paul,  ch.  iii.  Philo  in  his  writings  uses  the 
very  same  illustration.  Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  add  the  concluding 
words  of  Bishop  Lightfoot  when  discussing  on  p.  197  of  his  Galatians, 
the  similar  use  made  by  St.  Paul  and  by  Philo  of  this  illustration  of 
Hagar:  "At  the  same  time  we  need  not  fear  to  allow  that  St.  Paul's 
method  of  teaching  here  is  coloured  by  his  early  education  in  the 
rabbinical  schools.  It  were  as  unreasonable  to  stake  the  Apostle's 
inspiration  on  the  turn  of  a  metaphor  or  the  character  of  an  illustration 
or  the  form  of  an  argument,  as  on  purity  of  diction.  No  one  now 
thinks  of  maintaining  that  the  language  of  the  inspired  writers  reaches 
the  classical  standard  of  correctness  and  elegance,  though  at  one  time  it 
was  held  almost  a  heresy  to  deny  this.  '  A  treasure  contained  in  earthen 
vessels,'  'strength  made  perfect  in  weakness,'  'rudeness' in  speech,  yet 
not  in  knowledge, '  such  is  the  far  nobler  conception  of  inspired  teaching, 
which  we  may  gather  from  the  Apostle's  own  language.  And  this 
language  we  should  do  well  to  bear  in  mind.  But,  on  the  other  hand 
it  were  mere  dogmatism  to  set  up  the  intellectual  standard  of  our  own 
age  or  country  as  an  infallible  rule.  The  power  of  allegory  has  been 
differently  felt  in  different  ages,  as  it  is  differently  felt  at  any  one  time 
by  diverse  nations.  Analogy,  allegory,  metaphor — by  what  boundaries 
are  these  separated  the  one  from  the  other  ?  What  is  true  or  false,  correct 
or  incorrect,  as  an  analogy  or  an  allegory  ?  What  argumentative  force 
must  be  assigned  to  either  ?  We  should  at  least  be  prepared  with  an 
answer  to  these  questions  before  we  venture  to  sit  in  judgment  on  any 
individual  case." 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Gamaliel,  but  there  are  numberless  others  scattered  all 
through  his  writings.  If  we  view  them  through  Western 
spectacles,  we  shall  be  disappointed  and  miss  their 
force ;  but  if  we  view  them  sympathetically,  if  we 
remember  that  the  Jews  quoted  and  studied  the  Old 
Testament  to  find  illustrations  of  their  own  ideas  rather 
than  proofs  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  studied  them  as 
an  enthusiastic  Shakespeare  or  Tennyson  or  Words- 
worth student  pores  over  his  favourite  author  to  find 
parallels  which  others,  who  are  less  bewitched,  find 
very  slight  and  very  dubious  indeed,^  then  we  shall 
come  to  see  how  it  is  that  St.  Paul  quotes  an  illustration 
of  his  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  from  Habakkuk 
ii.  4 — "  The  soul  of  the  proud  man  is  not  upright,  but 
the  just  man  shall  live  by  his  steadfastness  "  ;  a  passage 
which  originally  applied  to  the  Chaldeans  and  the  Jews, 
predicting  that  the  former  should  enjoy  no  stable  pro- 
sperity, but  that  the  Jews,  ideally  represented  as  the 
just  or  upright  man,  should  live  securely  because  of 
their  fidelity  ;'^  and  can  find  an  allusion  to  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ  in  "  the  sure  mercies  of  David,"  which 
God  had  promised  to  give  His  people  in  the  third  verse 
of  the  fifty-fifth  of  Isaiah. ^ 

'  The  latest  instance  of  this  method  which  I  have  noticed  is  I/his- 
trations  of  Tennyson,  by  J.  C.  Collins,  reviewed  by  the  Dean  of  Armagh 
in  the  January  number  of  the  Bookman,  where  a  number  of  such 
parallelisms  are  quoted  which  seem  to  me  rather  dubious. 

-  Bishop  Lightfoot,  on  Galatians  iii.  ii,  says  of  this  verse,  "  In  its 
original  context  the  passage  has  reference  to  the  temporal  calamities 
inflicted  by  the  Chaldean  invasion.  Here  a  spiritual  meaning  and 
general  application  are  given  to  words  referring  primarily  to  special 
external  incidents."  See  also  Farrar  on  St.  Pauls  method  of  scriptural 
quotation,  in  his  Life  of  St.  Paul,  ch.  iii. 

*  See  St.  Paul's  address  to  the  Jews  of  the  Pisidian  Antioch  in  Acts 
xiii.  34.  Other  specimens  of  the  same  rabbiniCal  method  used  by  St. 
Paul  will  be  found  in  Rom.  iii.,  iv.,  and  ix.  33  ;  i  Cor.  ix.    Eph.  iv.  8.     ~ 


vii.sS.]     THE   TRAINING  OF  SAUL    THE    RABBI.  21 

Rabbinical  learning,  Hebrew  discipline,  Greek  ex- 
perience and  life,  these  conspired  together  with  natural 
impulse  and  character  to  frame  and  form  and  mould  a 
man  who  must  make  his  mark  upon  the  world  at  large 
in  whatever  direction  he  chooses  for  his  walk  in  life. 
It  will  now  be  our  duty  to  show  what  were  the  earliest 
results  of  this  very  varied  education/ 

'  The  great  leaders  in  the  divine  struggle  for  righteousness,  in  every 
great  onward  movement  on  behalf  of  truth  have  always  been  men  of 
this  varied  training.  Moses,  David,  Elijah,  Ezra,  Saul  of  Tarsus,  were 
great  leaders  of  thought  and  action  and  they  were  all  men  whose 
education  had  been  developed  in  very  various  schools.  They  were  not 
men  of  books  merely,  nor  men  of  action  alone.  They  gained  the 
flexibility  of  mind,  the  genuine  liberality  of  thought  which  led  them  out 
of  the  old  rucks  by  experiences  gained  from  very  opposite  directions. 
The  mere  man  of  books  may  be  very  narrow ;  the  practical  man, 
whose  knowledge  is  limited  to  eveiy  day  affairs  and  whose  horizon  is 
bounded  by  to-mon^ow,  is  often  an  unthinking  bigot.  A  man  trained 
like  Moses,  or  David,  or  Saul  is  the  true  leader  of  men  for  his  mind  is 
trained  to  receive  truths  from  every  quarter. 


CHAPTER  II.  I 

\ 

THE   CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  \ 

I 
' '  But  Saul  laid  waste  the  church,  entering  into  every  house,  and    i 

haling  men  and  women  committed  them  to  prison." — Acts  viii.  3. 

"  But  Saul,  yet  breathing  threatening  and  slaughter  against  the 
disciples  of  the  Lord,  went  unto  the  high  priest,  and  asked  of  him 
letters  to  Damascus  unto  the  synagogues,  that  if  he  found  any  that 
were  of  the  Way,  whether  men  or  women,  he  might  bring  them  bound 
to  Jerusalem.  And  as  he  journeyed,  it  came  to  pass  that  he  drew  nigh 
unto  Damascus  :  and  suddenly  there  shone  round  about  him  a  light  out 
of  heaven  :  and  he  fell  upon  the  earth,  and  heard  a  voice  saying  unto 
him,  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  Me  ?  And  he  said.  Who  art 
thou.  Lord  ?  And  He  said,  I  am  Jesus  whom  thou  persecutest :  but 
rise,  and  enter  into  the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  must  do." 
. — Acts  ix.  i-6. 

WE  have  in  the  last  chapter  traced  the  course  of 
St.  Paul's  life  as  we  know  it  from  his  own 
reminiscences,  from  hints  in  Holy  Scripture,  and  from 
Jewish  history  and  customs.  The  Jewish  nation  is 
exactly  like  all  the  nations  of  the  East,  in  one  respect  at 
least.  They  are  all  intensely  conservative,  and  though 
time  has  necessarily  introduced  some  modifications,  yet 
the  course  of  education,  and  the  force  of  prejudice,  and 
the  powej-  of  custom  have  in  the  main  remained  un- 
changed down  to  the  present  time.  We  now  proceed  to 
view  St.  Paul,  not  as  we  imagine  his  course  of  life  and 
education  to  have  been,  but  as  we  follow  him  in  the 
exhibition  of  his   active  powers,  in  the  lull  play  and 


viii.3,ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  23 

swing  of  that  intellectual  energy,  of  those  religious  aims 
and  objects  for  which  he  had  been  so  long  training. 

St.  Paul  at  his  first  appearance  upon  the  stage  of 
Christian  history,  upon  the  occasion  of  St.  Stephen's 
martyrdom,  had  arrived  at  the  full  stature  of  manhood 
both  in  body  and  in  mind.  He  was  then  the  young 
man  Saul ;  an  expression  which  enables  us  to  fix 
with  some  approach  to  accuracy  the  time  of  his  birth. 
St.  Paul's  contemporary  Philo  in  one  of  his  works 
divides  man's  life  into  seven  periods,  the  fourth  of  which 
is  young  manhood,  which  he  assigns  to  the  years  between 
twenty-one  and  twenty-eight.  Roughly  speaking,  and 
without  attempting  any  fine-drawn  distinctions  for  which 
we  have  not  sufficient  material,  we  may  say  that  at  the 
martyrdom  of  St.  Stephen  St.  Paul  was  about  thirty 
years  of  age,  or  some  ten  years  or  thereabouts  junior  to 
our  Lord  as  His  years  would  have  been  numbered  accord- 
ing to  those  of  the  sons  of  men.  One  circumstance, 
indeed,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  St.  Paul  must  have 
been  then  over  and  above  the  exact  fine  of  thirty.  It  is 
urged,  and  that  upon  the  ground  of  St.  Paul's  own  lan- 
guage, that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrin.  In  the 
twenty-sixth  chapter,  defending  himself  before  King 
Agrippa,  St.  Paul  described  his  own  course  of  action  prior 
to  his  conversion  as  one  of  bitterest  hostility  to  the 
Christian  cause  :  "  I  both  shut  up  many  of  the  saints  in 
prisons,  having  received  authority  from  the  chief  priests, 
and  when  they  were  put  to  death,  I  gave  my  vote  against 
them  "  ;  an  expression  which  clearly  indicates  that  he  was 
a  member  of  a  body  and  possessed  a  vote  in  an  assembly 
which  determined  questions  of  life  and  death,  and  that 
could  have  been  nothing  else  than  the  Sanhedrin,  into 
which  no  one  was  admitted  before  he  had  completed 
thirty  years.     St.  Paul,  then,  when  he  is  first  introduced 


24  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  our  notice,  comes  before  us  as  a  full-grown  man  and  a 
well-trained,  carefully  educated,  thoroughly  disciplined 
rabbinical  scholar,  whose  prejudices  were  naturally 
excited  against  the  new  Galilean  sect,  and  who  had 
given  public  expression  to  his  feelings  by  taking 
decided  steps  in  opposition  to  its  progress.  The  sacred 
narrative  now  sets  before  us  (i)  the  Conduct  of  St. 
Paul  in  his  unconverted  state,  (ii)  his  Mission,  (iii)  his 
Journey,  and  (iv)  his  Conversion.  Let  us  take  the 
many  details  and  circumstances  connected  with  this 
passage  under  these  four  divisions. 

I.  The  Conduct  of  Saul.  Here  we  have  a  picture  of 
St.  Paul  in  his  unconverted  state :  "  Saul,  yet  breath- 
ing threatening  and  slaughter  against  the  disciples 
of  the  Lord."  This  description  is  amply  borne  out 
by  St.  Paul  himself,  in  which  he  even  enlarges  and 
gives  us  additional  touches  of  the  intensity  of  his 
antichristian  hate.  His  ignorant  zeal  at  this  period 
seems  to  have  printed  itself  deep  upon  memory's 
record.  There  are  no  less  than  at  least  seven  differ- 
ent notices  in  the  Acts  or  scattered  through  the  Epistles, 
due  to  his  own  tongue  or  pen,  and  dealing  directly  with 
his  conduct  as  a  persecutor.  No  matter  how  he 
rejoiced  in  the  fulness  and  blessedness  of  Christ's 
pardon,  no  matter  how  he  experienced  the  power  and 
working  of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  St.  Paul  never  could 
forget  the  intense  hatred  with  which  he  had  originally 
followed  the  disciples  of  the  Master.  Let  us  note  them, 
for  they  all  bear  out,  expand,  and  explain  the  statement 
of  the  passage  we  are  now  considering. 

In  his  address  to  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem  as  recorded 
in  Acts  xxii.  he  appeals  to  his  former  conduct  as  an  evi- 
dence of  his  sincerity.  In  verses  4  and  5  he  says,  "  I 
persecuted  this  Way  unto  the  death,  binding  and  deliver- 


viii.3,ix.i-6.]   CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  25 


ing  into  prisons  both  men  and  women.  As  also  the 
high  priest  doth  bear  me  witness,  and  all  the  estate  of 
the  elders  :  from  whom  also  I  received  letters  unto  the 
brethren/  and  journeyed  to  Damascus,  to  bring  them 
also  which  were  there  unto  Jerusalem  in  bonds,  for  to 
be  punished,"  In  the  same  discourse  he  recurs  a  second 
time  to  this  topic  ;  for,  telling  his  audience  of  the  vision 
granted  to  him  in  the  temple,  he  says,  verse  19,  "  And  I 
said,  Lord,  they  themselves  know  that  I  imprisoned  and 
beat  in  every  synagogue  them  that  believed  on  Thee  : 
and  when  the  blood  of  Stephen  Thy  witness  was  shed, 
I  also  was  standing  by,  and  consenting,  and  keep- 
ing the  garments  of  them  that  slew  him."  St.  Paul 
dwells  upon  the  same  topic  in  the  twenty- sixth  chapter, 
when  addressing  King  Agrippa  in  verses  9-1 1,  a  pass- 
age already  quoted  in  part :  "  I  verily  thought  with 
myself,  that  I  ought  to  do  many  things  contrary  to  the 
name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  And  this  I  also  did  in 
Jerusalem :  and  I  both  shut  up  many  of  the  saints 
in  prisons,  having  received  authority  from  the  chief 
priests,  and  when  they  were  put  to  death,  I  gave  my 
vote  against  them.  And  punishing  them  oftentimes  in 
all  the  synagogues,  I  strove  to  make  them  blaspheme  ; 
and  being  exceedingly  mad  against  them,  I  persecuted 

'  What  an  interesting  anticipation  of  Christian  times  do  we  find  in  this 
passage.  '*  The  estate  of  the  elders  "  is  the  Presbytery  in  the  original 
Greek,  and  the  words  "the  brethren"  by  which  St.  Paul  refers  to  his 
unconverted  fellow-countrymen  are  an  anticipation  of  the  expression  he 
always  uses  for  the  Christian  believers.  Even  in  these  little  details 
Christianity  is  but  an  expansion  of  Judaism,  as,  in  another  direction, 
the  Catacombs  of  Rome  and  the  ornamentation  used  therein  were  all 
derived  from  the  customs  of  the  Jewish  colony  in  Rome  long  before 
the  time  of  Christ.  See  a  treatJise  by  Schurer,  called  Die  Gemeindc- 
verfassuHg  der  Juden  in  Rom  in  der  Kaiserzeit,  p.  13  (Leipzig,  1879), 
where  that  learned  writer  points  out  the  continuity  between  Judaism 
in  Rome  and  early  Christianity. 


26  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


them  even  unto  foreign  cities."  It  is  the  same  in 
his  Epistles.  In  four  different  places  does  he  refer  to 
his  conduct  as  a  persecutor — in  i  Cor.  xv.  9;  Gal.  i.  13; 
Phil.  iii.  6 ;  and  i  Tim.  i.  13  ;  while  again  in  the  chapter 
now  under  consideration,  the  ninth  of  Acts,  we  find 
that  the  Jews  of  the  synagogue  in  Damascus,  who 
were  listening  to  St.  Paul's  earliest  outburst  of  Chris- 
tian zeal,  asked,  "Is  not  this  he  that  in  Jerusalem 
made  havock  of  them  which  called  on  this  name  ?  and 
he  had  come  hither  for  this  intent,  that  he  might  bring 
them  bound  before  the  chief  priests  "  ;  using  the  very 
same  word  "  making  havock  "  as  St.  Paul  himself  uses 
in  the  first  of  Galatians,  which  in  Greek  is  very  strong, 
expressing  a  course  of  action  accompanied  with  fire 
and  blood  and  murder  such  as  occurs  when  a  city  is 
taken  by  storm. 

Now  these  passages  have  been  thus  set  forth  at 
length  because  they  add  many  details  to  the  bare 
statement  of  Acts  ix.,  giving  us  a  glimpse  into  those 
four  or  five  dark  and  bloody  years,  the  thought  of 
which  henceforth  weighed  so  heavily  upon  the  Apostle's 
mind  and  memory.  Just  let  us  notice  these  additional 
touches.  He  shut  up  in  prison  many  of  the  saints,  both 
men  and  women,  and  that  in  Jerusalem  before  he 
went  to  Damascus  at  all.  He  scourged  the  disciples 
in  every  synagogue,  meaning  doubtless  that  he  super- 
intended the  punishment,  as  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
Chazan,  the  minister  or  attendant  of  the  synagogue, 
to  scourge  the  condemned,  and  thus  strove  to  make  them 
blaspheme  Christ.  He  voted  for  the  execution  of  the 
disciples  when  he  acted  as  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrin. 
And  lastly  he  followed  the  disciples  and  persecuted 
them  in  foreign  cities.  We  gain  in  this  way  a  much 
fuller  idea  of  the  young  enthusiast's  persecuting  zeal 


viii.s.ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  27 

than  usually  is  formed  from  the  words  "  Saul  yet 
breathing  threatening  and  slaughter  against  the  dis- 
ciples of  the  Lord,"  which  seem  to  set  forth  Saul 
as  roused  to  wild  and  savage  excitement  by  St. 
Stephen's  death,  and  then  continuing  that  course  in 
the  city  of  Jerusalem  for  a  very  brief  period.  Whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  St.  Paul's  fuller  statements,  when  com- 
bined, represent  him  as  pursuing  a  course  of  steady, 
systematic,  and  cruel  repression,  which  St.  Paul  largely 
helped  to  inaugurate,  but  which  continued  to  exist  as 
long  as  the  Jews  had  the  power  to  inflict  corporal 
punishments  and  death  on  the  members  of  their  own 
nation.  He  visited  all  the  synagogues  in  Jerusalem 
and  throughout  Palestine,  scourging  and  imprisoning. 
He  strove — and  this  is,  again,  another  lifelike  touch, — 
to  compel  the  disciples  to  blaspheme  the  name  of 
Christ  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Romans  were  sub- 
sequently wont  to  test  Christians  by  calling  upon  them 
to  cry  anathema  to  the  name  of  their  Master.^  He 
even  extended  his  activity  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
Holy  Land,  and  that  in  various  directions.  The  visit 
to  Damascus  may  not  by  any  means  have  been  his 
first  journey  to  a  foreign  town  with  thoughts  bent  on 
the  work  of  persecution.     He  expressly  says  to  Agrippa, 

'  St.  Paul,  indeed,  in  his  persecuting  days  may  have  been  the  inventor 
of  the  test,  which  seems  to  have  consisted  in  a  declaration  that  Jesus  was 
not  the  Christ,  but  an  impostor.  We  find  a  reference  to  the  Jewish 
custom  of  blaspheming  the  name  of  Jesus  in  the  Epistle  of  James  (ii. 
6,  7)  :  "  Do  not  the  rich  oppress  you,  and  themselves  drag  you  before 
the  judgment -seats  ?  Do  not  they  blaspheme  the  honourable  name  by 
the  which  ye  are  called  ?  "  with  which  may  be  compared  St.  Paul's 
words  in  i  Cor.  xii.  3  :  "  No  man  speaking  in  the  Spirit  of  God  saith, 
Jesus  is  anathema."  The  same  custom  continued  in  the  second 
century,  as  we  learn  from  frequent  notices  in  Justin  Martyr's  Dialogue 
with  Trypho  the  Jew,  as  in  the  following  quotations  :  ch.  xvi.,  "cursing 
in  your  synagogues  those  that  believe  on  Christ " ;  in  ch.  xlvii.  he  enumer- 


28  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

"  I  persecuted  them  even  unto  foreign  cities."  He  may 
have  visited  Tarsus,  or  Lystra,  or  the  cities  of  Cyprus 
or  Alexandria  itself,  urged  on  by  the  consuming  fire 
of  his  blind,  restless  zeal,  before  he  entered  upon  the 
journey  to  Damascus,  destined  to  be  the  last  under- 
taken in  opposition  to  Jesus  Christ.  When  we  thus 
strive  to  realise  the  facts  of  the  case,  we  shall  see  that 
the  scenes  of  blood  and  torture  and  death,  the  ruined 
homes,  the  tears,  the  heartbreaking  separations  which 
the  young  man  Saul  had  caused  in  his  blind  zeal  for 
the  law,  and  which  are  briefly  summed  up  in  the  words 
"  he  made  havock  of  the  Church,"  were  quite  sufficient 
to  account  for  that  profound  impression  of  his  own 
unworthiness  and  of  God's  great  mercy  towards  him 
which  he  ever  cherished  to  his  dying  day.-^ 

ales  amongst  those  who  shall  not  be  saved  '  *  those  who  have  anathe- 
matised and  do  anathematise  this  very  Christ  in  the  synagogues"  ;  and 
in  ch.  cxxxvii.  he  exhorts  the  Jews,  "Assent,  therefore,  and  pour  no 
ridicule  on  the  Son  of  God  ;  obey  not  the  Pharisaic  teachers,  and  scoff 
not  at  the  King  of  Israel,  as  the  rulers  of  your  synagogues  teach  you 
to  do  after  your  prayers."  The  Romans,  as  I  have  said,  early  borrowed 
the  custom  from  the  Jews.  They  strove  to  compel  the  Christians  to 
blaspheme,  as  we  see  from  Pliny's  well-known  epistle  to  Trajan  in  his 
Epistles,  book  x.,  97,  where  he  describes  certain  persons  brought  before 
hira  as  "invoking  the  gods,  worshipping  the  emperor's  statue,  and 
reviling  the  name  of  Christ,  whereas  there  is  no  forcing  those  who 
are  really  Christians  into  any  of  these  compliances." 

'  St.  Paul,  in  i  Tim.  i.  15,  says,  "  Faithful  is  the  saying,  and  worthy 
of  all  acceptation,  that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners  ; 
of  whom  I  am  chief."  This  verse  is  of  ancient  and  of  very  modern 
interest  too.  It  shows  that  to  the  last  St.  Paul  retained  the  keenest 
sense  of  his  early  wickedness.  It  is  of  present  interest  because  it  helps 
to  correct  a  modern  error.  There  are  people  who  object  to  use  the 
Litany  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  because  of  the  prayers  for  forgiveness  of 
sins  and  the  occurrence  of  such  expressions  as  *'  Have  mercy  upon  us, 
miserable  sinners."  Their  argument  is,  that  believers  have  been  washed 
from  all  their  sins,  and  therefore  sliould  not  describe  themselves  as 
miserable  sinners.     St.  Paul,  ho\\'evcr,  saw  no  inconsistency  between 


viii.3,ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  29 

II.  The  Mission  of  Saul.  Again,  we  notice  in  this 
passage  that  Saul,  having  shown  his  activity  in  other 
directions,  now  turned  his  attention  to  Damascus. 
There  were  poHtical  circumstances  which  may  have 
hitherto  hindered  him  from  exercising  the  same  super- 
vision over  the  synagogue  of  Damascus  which  he  had 
already  extended  to  other  foreign  cities.     The  political 

God's  free  forgiving  love  and  his  own  humility  in  designating  himself 
the  chief  of  sinners.  God  may  have  cast  all  our  sins  behind  His  back  ; 
but,  viewing  the  matter  from  the  human  side,  it  is  well,  nay,  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary,  if  spiritual  pride  is  to  be  hindered  in  its  rapid  growth, 
for  us  to  cherish  a  remembrance  of  the  sins  and  backslidings  of  other 
days.  The  greatest  saints,  the  richest  spiritual  teachers  have  ever  felt 
the  necessity  of  it.  St.  Augustine  in  his  Confessions  mingles  perpetual 
reminiscences  of  his  own  wickedness  with  his  assured  sense  of  God's 
mercy.  Hooker  deals  in  his  own  profound  style  with  such  objection 
to  the  Litany  in  the  Fifth  Book  of  his  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  ch.  xlvii., 
w  here  he  writes,  replying  to  the  objection  that  the  expressions  of  the 
Litany  implying  fear  of  God  do  not  become  God's  saints  :  "The  know- 
ledge of  our  own  unworthiness  is  not  without  belief  in  the  merits  of 
Christ.  With  that  true  fear  which  th&  one  causeth  there  is  coupled 
true  boldness,  and  encouragement  drawn  from  the  other.  The  very 
silence  which  our  own  unworthiness  putteth  us  unto  doth  itself  make 
request  for  us,  and  that  in  the  consequence  of  His  grace.  Looking  inward 
we  are  stricken  dumb,  looking  upward  we  speak  and  prevail.  O  happy 
mixture,  wherein  things  contrary  do  so  qualify  and  correct  the  danger 
of  the  other's  excess,  that  neither  boldness  can  make  us  presume  as 
long  as  we  are  kept  under  with  the  sense  of  our  own  wretchedness ; 
nor  while  we  trust  in  the  mercy  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  fear  be 
able  to  tyrannise  over  us !  As  therefore  our  fear  excludeth  not  that 
boldness  which  becometh  saints  ;  so  if  their  familiarity  with  God 
(referring  to  his  opponents)  do  not  savour  of  this  fear,  it  draweth  too 
near  that  irreverent  confidence  wherewith  true  humility  can  never  stand." 
Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor  understood  the  bearing  of  St.  Paul's  view  on 
personal  religion.  In  his  Holy  Living,  in  the  chapter  on  Humility, 
he  teaches  those  who  seek  that  grace  thus  :  "  Every  day  call  to  mind 
some  one  of  thy  foulest  sins,  or  the  most  shameful  of  thy  disgraces,  or 
the  indiscreetest  of  thy  actions,  or  anything  that  did  then  most  trouble 
thee,  and  apply  it  to  the  present  swelling  of  thy  spirit  and  opinion,  and 
it  may  help  to  allay  it." 


30  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

history  and  circumstances  of  Damascus  at  this  period 
are  indeed   rather  obscure.     The  city  seems    to  have 
been  somewhat  of  a  bone  of  contention  between  Herod 
Antipas,  Aretas  the  king  of  Petra,  and  the  Romans, 
About  the  time  of  St.  Paul's  conversion,   which  may 
be  fixed  at  a.d.  37  or  38,  there  was  a  period  of  great 
disturbance  in  Palestine  and  Southern  Syria.     Pontius 
Pilate  was  deposed  from  his  office  and  sent  to  Rome 
for  judgment.     Vitellius,  the    president    of  the  whole 
Province  of  Syria,  came  into  Palestine,  changing  the 
high  priests,  conciliating  the  Jews,  and  intervening  in 
the    war   which    raged    between    Herod    Antipas    and 
Aretas,  his   father-in-law.     In   the  course   of  this  last 
struggle  Damascus  seems  to  have  changed  its  masters, 
and,  while  a  Roman  city  till  the  year  37,  it  henceforth 
became  an  Arabian  city,  the  property  of  King  Aretas, 
till  the  reign  of  Nero,  when  it  again  returned  beneath 
the  Roman  sway.     Some  one  or  other,  or  perhaps  all 
these  political  circumstances  combined  may  have  hitherto 
prevented  the  Sanhedrin  from  taking  active  measures 
against  the  disciples   at   Damascus.     But   now  things 
became  settled.     Caiaphas  was  deposed  from  the  office 
of  high  priest  upon  the  departure  of  Pontius  Pilate. 
He  had  been  a  great  friend  and  ally  of  Pilate ;  Vitellius 
therefore  deprived  Caiaphas  of  his  sacred  office,  appoint- 
ing in  his  stead  Jonathan,  son  of  Annas,  the  high  priest. 
This  Jonathan  did  not,  however,  long  continue  to  occupy 
the  position,  as  he  was  deposed  by  the  same  Roman 
magistrate,  Vitellius,  at  the  feast  of  Pentecost  in  the 
very  same  year,  his  brother  Theophilus  being  "appointed 
high  priest  in  his  room ;  so  completely  was  the  whole 
Levitical  hierarchy,   the   entire  Jewish   establishment, 
ruled   by   the   political   officers  of  the    Roman   state. 
This  Theophilus  continued  to  hold  the  office  for  five  or 


viii.3,ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  31 


six  years,  and  it  must  have  been  to  Theophilus  that 
Saul  applied  for  letters  unto  Damascus  authorising  him 
to  arrest  the  adherents  of  the  new  religion.^ 

And  now  a  question  here  arises,  How  is  it  that  the 
high  priest  could  exercise  such  powers  and  arrest  his 
co-religionists  in  a  foreign  town  ?     The  answer  to  this 
sheds  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  state  of  the  Jews  of 
the   Dispersion,  as  they  were  called.     I  have  already 
said  a  little  on  this  point,  but  it  demands  fuller  discus- 
sion.^    The  high  priest  at  Jerusalem  was  regarded  as 
a  kind  of  head  of  the  whole  nation.     He  was  viewed 
by  the  Romans  as  the  Prince  of  the  Jews,^  with  whom 
they    could    formally    treat,  and  by  whom  they  could 
manage  a  nation  which,  differing  from  all  others  in  its 
manners  and  customs,  was  scattered  all  over  the  world, 
and  often  gave  much  trouble.     Julius  Caesar  laid  down 
the  lines  on  which  Jewish  privileges  and  Roman  policy 
were  based,  and  that  half  a  century  before  the  Chris- 
tian era.     Julius  Caesar  had  been  greatly  assisted  in 
his    Alexandrian    war    by    the    Jewish     high    priest 
Hyrcanus,  so  he  issued  an  edict  in  the  year  47  b.c, 
which,  after  reciting  the  services  of  Hyrcanus,  proceeds 
thus,  "  I  command  that  Hyrcanus  and  his  children  do 
retain  all  the  rights  of  the  high  priest,  whether  estab- 
lished by  law  or  accorded  by  courtesy ;   and  if  here- 
after any  question  arise  touching  the  Jewish  polity,  I 
desire  that  the  determination   thereof  be  referred  to 
him  " ;  an  edict  which,  confirmed  as  it  was  again  and 

'  The  references  for  all  these  changes  are  given  in  Lewin's  Fasti, 
and  in  his  Life  of  St.  Paul,  with  which  Josephus,  Antiqq.,  XVIII.,  iv., 
should  be  compared. 

"  See  vol.  i.,  pp.  174-6,  271. 

'  The  decree  of  Julius  Csesar,  upon  which  the  Jewish  privileges  were 
built,  expressly  calls  the  high  priest  the  ethnarch  [edvapxi]^),  or  ruler, 
of  the  Jews.     See  Josephus,  Antiqq.,  XIV.,  x.,  3. 


32  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

again,  not  only  by  Julius  Caesar,  but  by  several  sub- 
sequent emperors,  gave  the  high  priest  the  fullest 
jurisdiction  over  the  Jews,  wherever  they  dwelt,  in 
things  pertaining  to  their  own  religion.^  It  was  there- 
fore in  strictest  accord  with  Roman  law  and  custom 
that,  when  Saul  wished  to  arrest  members  of  the  syna- 
gogue at  Damascus,  he  should  make  application  to  the 
high  priest  Theophilus  for  a  warrant  enabling  him  to 
effect  his  purpose. 

The  description,  too,  given  of  the  disciples  in  this 
passage  is  very  noteworthy  and  a  striking  evidence  of 
the  truthfulness  of  the  narrative.  The  disciples  were 
the  men  of  "  the  Way."  Saul  desired  to  bring  any  of 
"  the  Way  "  found  at  Damascus  to  be  judged  at  Jeru- 
salem, because  the  Sanhedrin  alone  possessed  the  right 
to  pass  capital  sentences  in  matters  of  religion.  The 
synagogues  at  Damascus  or  anywhere  else  could  flog 
culprits,  and  a  Jew  could  get  no  redress  for  any 
such  ill-treatment  even  if  he  sought  it,  which  would 
have  not  been  at  all  likely ;  but  if  the  final  sentence 
of  death  were  to  be  passed,  the  Jerusalem  Sanhedrin 
was  the  only  tribunal  competent  to  entertain  such 
questions.'^     And  the  persons  he  desired  to  hale  before 

'  This  point  is  worked  out  at  great  length  and  with  a  multitude  of 
references  in  Lewin's  L(fg  of  St.  Paul,  ch.  iv.,  vol.  i.,  pp.  44-7. 
Josephus,  in  his  Antiquities,  book  xiv.,  ch,  x.,  gives  the  words  of  Csesar's 
decree.  In  ch.  viii.  of  the  same  book  he  describes  the  warlike  assist- 
ance lent  by  the  Jew-  to  Julius  C.tesar  in  his  Egyptian  campaign. 

-  I  know  it  is  a  common  opinion  that  the  Jews  had  no  power  of 
capital  punishment  and  that  the  Romans  permitted  the  infliction  merely 
of  scourgings  and  such  minor  penalties.  Lightfoot,  in  his  Honi:  Hebraiac 
on  Matt.  xxvi.  3  ;  John  xviii.  31 ;  Acts  ix,  2,  controverts  this  view  in 
long  and  learned  notes.  The  Jews  certainly  stated  to  Pilate,  according 
to  John  xviii.  31,  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  us  to  put  any  man  to  death." 
But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Sanhedrin  put  St.  Stephen  to  death,  and 
St.  Paul  tells  us  that  when  the  saints  were  put  to  death  he  voted  against 


Viii.3,ix.  T-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  ^ 

this  awful  tribunal  were  the  men  of  the  Way.  This 
was  the  name  by  which,  in  its  earliest  and  purest  day, 
the  Church  called  itself.  In  the  nineteenth  chapter  and 
ninth  verse  we  read  of  St.  Paul's  labours  at  Ephesus 
and  the  opposition  he  endured :  "  But  when  some 
were  hardened  and  disobedient,  speaking  evil  of  the 
Way  before  the  multitude  " ;  while  again,  in  his  defence 
before  Felix  (xxiv.  14),  we  read,  "  But  this  I  confess 
unto  thee,  that  after  the  Way  which  they  call  a  sect, 
so  serve  I  the  God  of  our  fathers."  The  Revised 
translation  of  the  New  Testament  has  well  brought 
out  the  force  of  the  original  in  a  manner  that  was 
utterly   missed    in    the    Authorised    Version,    and    has 


them ;  showing  that  the  Sanhedrin  did  put  many  of  the  disciples  to 
death.  Lightfoot  thinks  that  the  Jews  merely  wished  to  throw  the  odium 
of  our  Lord's  execution  upon  the  Romans,  and  therefore  pleaded  their 
own  inability  to  condemn  Him  for  a  capital  offence,  because  of  the  par- 
ticular chamber  where  the  Sanhedrin  then  sat,  where  it  was  unlawful 
to  judge  a  capital  crime.  The  Pharisees,  too,  joined' in  the  attempt  to 
bring  about  our  Lord's  death,  and  their  traditions  made  them  averse 
to-  the  shedding  of  Jewish  blood  by  the  Sanhedrin.  The  Sadducees 
were,  however,  the  dominant  party  in  the  year  37,  and  they  had 
no  such  scruples.  They  were  always  of  a  cruel  and  bloodthirsty 
disposition  and  stern  in  their  punishments,  as  Josephus  tells  us  in  his 
Antiqq.,  XX.,  ix.,  I.  This  was  of  course  the  natural  result  of  their 
material  philosophy  which  regarded  man  as  devoid  of  any  immortal 
principle.  Lightfoot  gives  instances  too  (Matt.  xxvi.  3)  of  a  priest's 
daughter  burned  to  death  and  of  a  man  stoned  at  Lydda  even  after  the 
destruction  of  the  city,  showing  that  the  Sanhedrin  still  contrived  to 
exercise  capital  jurisdiction.  The  time  when  Saul  set  out  for  Damascus 
was  very  favourable  from  political  reasons  for  any  new  or  unusual 
assumptions  of  authority  on  the  part  of  the  Sanhedrin.  Vitellius  the 
Prefect  was  very  anxious  to  be  deferential  in  every  way  to  the  Jewish 
authorities.  He  had  just  restored  the  custody  of  the  high  priest's  robes 
to  the  Sanhedrin  and  the  priests.  This  may  have  encouraged  them  to 
adopt  the  fiercest  and  sternest  measures  against  the  new  sectaries.  As 
for  the  minor  punishment  of  flogging,  the  synagogues  in  Holland  have 
been  known  to  exercise  it  so  lately  as  the  seventeenth  century. 

VOL.  n.  3 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


emphasized  for  us  a  great  truth  concerning  the  early 
Christians.  There  was  a  certain  holy  intolerance  even 
about  the  very  name  they  imposed  upon  the  earliest 
Church.  It  was  the  Way,  the  only  Way,  the  Way  of 
Life.  The  earliest  Christians  had  a  lively  recollection 
of  what  the  Apostles  had  heard  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Master  Himself,  "  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the 
Life ;  no  one  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me";  and 
so,  realising  the  identity  of  Christ  and  His  people, 
realising  the  continued  presence  of  Christ  in  His  Church, 
they  designated  that  Church  by  a  term  which  expressed 
their  belief  that  in  it  alone  was  the  road  to  peace,  the 
sole  path  of  access  to  God.  This  name  "  the  Way  " 
expressed  their  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  truth. 
Their's  was  no  easy-going  religion  which  thought  that 
it  made  not  the  slightest  matter  what  form  of  belief  a 
man  professed.  They  were  awfully  in  earnest,  because 
they  knew  of  only  one  way  to  God,  and  that  was  the 
religion  and  Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  Therefore  it  was 
that  they  were  wilHng  to  suffer  all  things  rather  than 
that  they  should  lose  this  Way,  or  that  others  should 
miss  it  through  their  default.  The  marvellous,  the 
intense  missionary  efforts  of  the  primitive  Church  find 
their  explanation  in  this  expression,  the  Way.  God 
had  revealed  the  Way  and  had  called  themselves  into 
it,  and  their  great  duty  in  life  was  to  make  others 
know  the  greatness  of  this  salvation ;  or,  as  St.  Paul 
puts  it,  "  Necessity  is  laid  upon  me  ;  woe  is  unto  me  if 
I  preach  not  the  gospel."^ 

The  exclusive  claims  of  Christianity  are  thus  early 


'  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in  this  respect  throws  an  interesting 
light  upon  the  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  published  a  few  years 
ago  by  Bishop  Bryennius,  and  helps  us  to  fix  its  early  date.     That 


viii.3,ix.  1-6.]   CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  35 

set  forth  ;  and  it  was  these  same  exclusive  claims  which 
caused  Christianity  to  be  so  hated  and  persecuted  by 
the  pagans/  The  Roman  Empire  would  not  have  so 
bitterly  resented  the  preaching  of  Christ,  if  His  followers 
would  have  accepted  the  position  with  which  other 
religions  were  contented.  The  Roman  Empire  wa>. 
not  intolerant  of  new  ideas  in  matters  of  religion. 
Previous  to  the  coming  of  our  Lord  the  pagans  had 
welcomed  the  strange,  mystic  rites  and  teaching  of 
Egypt.  They  accepted  from  Persia  the  curious  system 
and  worship  of  Mithras  within  the  first  century  after 
Christ's  crucifixion.  And  tradition  tells  that  at  least 
two  of  the  emperors  were  willing  to  admit  the  image 
of  Christ  into  the  Pantheon,  which  they  had  consecrated 


important  relic  of  early  Christianity  never  speaks  of  the  followers  of 
the  new  religion  as  Christians.  It  opens  by  describing  the  two  ways, 
the  way  of  Life,  which  is  Christianity,  and  the  way  of  Death.  It  must 
therefore  have  been  composed  when  the  memory  of  the  Church's  earliest 
designation,  "the  Way,"  was  still  fresh.  By  the  time  of  Aristides 
(a.d.  125)  and  of  Pliny  the  title  "Christians"  was  the  common  one 
both  inside  and  outside  the  Church. 

'  This  sense  of  the  awful  importance  of  Christianity  as  the  Way 
made  the  Christians  enthusiastic  and  determined  in  their  efforts  to 
spread  their  religion.  In  the  earliest  apology  or  defence  of  Christianity, 
that  of  Aristides,  which  I  have  fully  described  in  the  previous  volume 
of  this  Commentary,  we  find  this  fact  openly  avowed  and  gloried  in  as 
in  the  following  passage :  "As  for  their  servants  or  handmaids,  or  their 
children,  if  they  have  any,  they  persuade  them  to  become  Christians  for 
the  love  they  have  towards  them  ;  and  when  they  have  become  so,  they 
call  them  without  distinction  brethren."  A  system  so  broad  as  to  view 
all  religions  as  equally  important  would  never  have  innate  force  enough 
to  lead  a  man  to  become  a  missionary,  and  most  certainly  never  would 
have  produced  a  martyr.  Christianity  really  understood  is  a  very  broad 
religion  ;  its  essential  dogmas  are  very  few ;  but  there  is  a  kind  of  breadth 
in  religion  now  fashionable  which  the  early  Christians  never  understood 
or  they  would  not  have  acted  as  they  did.  Who  would  have  throwm 
away  his  life  amid  the  cruellest  tortures  if  it  was  all  the  same  whether 
men  worshipped  Jupiter  or  Jesus  Christ 


36  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  the  memory  of  the  great  and  good.^  But  the  Chris- 
tians would  have  nothing  to  say  or  do  with  such  partial 
honours  for  their  Master.  Religion  for  them  was 
Christ  alone  or  else  it  was  nothing,  and  that  because 
He  alone  was  the  Way.  As  there  was  but  one  God 
for  them,  so  there  was  but  one  Mediator,  Christ  Jesus. 
III.  Saul's  Journey.  ''As  he  journeyed,  it  came  to 
pass  that  he  drew  nigh  unto  Damascus."  This  is  the 
simple  record  left  us  in  Holy  Writ  of  this  momentous 
event.  A  comparison  of  the  sacred  record  with  any  of 
the  numerous  lives  of  St.  Paul  which  have  been  published 
will  show  us  how  very  different  their  points  of  view. 
The  mere  human  narratives  dwell  upon  the  external 
features  of  the  scene,  enlarge  upon  the  light  which 
modern  discoveries  have  thrown  upon  the  lines  of  road 
which  connected  Jerusalem  with  Southern  Syria,  become 
enthusiastic  over  the  beauty  of  Damascus  as  seen  by 
the  traveller  from  Jerusalem,  over  the  eternal  green  of 
the  groves  and  gardens  which  are  still,  as  of  old,  made 
glad  by  the  waters  of  Abana  and  of  Pharpar  ;  while  the 
sacred  narrative  passes  over  all  external  details  and 
marches  straight  to  the  great  central  fact  of  the  perse- 
cutor's conversion.  And  we  find  no  fault  with  this. 
It  is  well  that  the  human  narratives  should  enlarge  as 

'  TertuUian,  about  the  year  200,  tells  us  {Apologet.,  ch.  v.  and  xxi.) 
that  the  Emperor  Tiberius,  under  whom  our  Lord  suffered,  was  so 
moved  by  Pilate's  report  of  the  miracles  and  resurrection  of  Christ  as 
to  propose  a  bill  to  the  Senate  that  Christ  should  be  received  among 
the  gods  of  Rome  ;  while,  as  for  Emperor  Alexander  Severus,  A.D.  222 
to  235,  he  went  even  further.  In  Christ  he  recognised  a  Divine  Being 
equal  with  the  other  gods  ;  and  in  his  domestic  chapel  he  placed  the  bust 
of  Christ  along  with  the  images  of  those  men  whom  he  regarded  as 
beings  of  a  superior  order — of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  and  Orpheus,  and 
stich  like.  Heliogabalus,  a.  D.  219,  is  credited  with  a  desire  to  have 
blended  <'Jhristialiity  with  the  worship  of  the  Sun  :  see  Neander,  Church 
History,  vol.  i.,  pp.  1 28,  173,  Bohn's  edition. 


viii.  3,  ix.  1-6.]   CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  37 

they  do  upon  the  outward  features  and  circumstances 
of  the  journey,  because  they  thus  help  us  to  realise  the 
Acts  as  a  veritable  history  that  was  lived  and  acted. 
We  are  too  apt  to  idealise  the  Bible,  to  think  of  it  as 
dealing  with  an  unreal  world,  and  to  regard  the  men 
and  women  thereof  as  beings  of  another  type  from  our- 
selves. Books  like  Farrar's  and  Lewin's  and  Conybeare 
and  Howson's  Lives  of  St.  Paul  correct  this  tendency, 
and  make  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  infinitely  more 
interesting  by  rendering  St.  Paul's  career  human  and 
lifelike  and  clothing  it  with  the  charm  of  local  detail. 
It  is  thus  that  we  can  guess  at  the  very  road  by  which 
the  enthusiastic  Saul  travelled.  The  caravans  from 
Egypt  to  Damascus  are  intensely  conservative  in  their 
routes.  In  fact,  even  in  our  own  revolutionary  West 
trade  and  commerce  preserve  in  large  measure  the  same 
routes  to-day  as  they  used  two  thousand  years  ago.  The 
great  railways  of  England,  and  much  more  the  great  main 
roads,  preserve  in  a  large  degree  the  same  directions 
which  the  ancient  Roman  roads  observed.  In  Ireland, 
with  which  I  am  still  better  acquainted,  I  know  that  the 
great  roads  starting  from  Dublin  preserve  in  the  main 
the  same  lines  as  in  the  days  of  St.  Patrick.^  And  so 
it  is,  but  only  to  a  much  greater  degree,  in  Palestine 
and  throughout  the  East.  The  road  from  Jerusalem 
to  Jericho  preserved  in  St.  Jerome's  time,  four  centuries 
later,  the  same  direction  and  the  same  character  as  in 
our  Lord's  day,  so  that  it  was  then  called  the  Bloody 
Road,  from  the  frequent  robberies ;  and  thus  it  is  still, 
for  the  pilgrims  who  now  go  to  visit  the  Jordan  are 
furnished  with  a  guard  of  Turkish  soldiers  to  protect 

'  See  Peti'ie's  "  Tara  "  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy, 
t.  xviii.,  and  Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church,  by  G.  T.  Stokes,  pp.  80,  81, 
for  illustrations  of  this  point. 


38  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


them  from  the  Arab  bandits.  And  to-day,  as  in  the 
first  century,  the  caravans  from  Egypt  and  Jerusalem 
to  Damascus  follow  either  of  two  roads  :  one  which 
proceeds  through  Gaza  and  Ramleh,  along  the  coast, 
and  then,  turning  eastward  about  the  borders  of 
Samaria  and  Galilee,  crosses  the  Jordan  and  proceeds 
through  the  desert  to  Damascus— that  is  the  Egyptian 
road ;  ^  while  the  other,  which  serves  for  travellers 
from  Jerusalem,  runs  due  north  from  that  city  and 
joins  the  other  road  at  the  entrance  to  Galilee.  This 
latter  was  probabi}'  the  road  which  St.  Paul  took.  The 
distance  which  he  had  to  traverse  is  not  very  great. 
One  hundred  and  thirty-six  miles  separate  Jerusalem 
from  Damascus,  a  journey  which  is  performed  in  five 
or  six  days  by  such  a  company  as  Saul  had  with 
him.  We  get  a  hint,  too,  of  the  manner  in  which 
he  travelled.  He  rode  probably  on  a  horse  or  a 
mule,  like  modern  travellers  on  the  same  road,  as  we 
gather  from  Acts  ix.  4  compared  with  xxii.  7,  passages 
which  represent  Saul  and  his  companions  as  falling 
to  the  earth  when  the  supernatural  light  flashed  upon 
their  astonished  vision. 

The  exact  spot  where  Saul  was  arrested  in  his 
mad  career  is  a  matter  of  some  debate ;  some  fix  it 
close  to  the  city  of  Damascus,  half  a  mile  or  so 
from  the  south  gate  on  the  high  road  to  Jerusalem. 
Dr.  Porter,  whose  long  residence  at  Damascus  made 
him  an  authority  on  the  locality,  places  the  scene  of 
the  conversion  at  the  village  of  Caucabe,  ten  miles  away, 
where  the  traveller  from  Jerusalem  gets  his  first  glimpse 
of  the  towers  and  groves  of  Damascus.  We  are  not 
anxious  to  determine  this  point.     The  great  spiritual 

'  See  Geikie's  The  Holy  Land  and  the  Bible,  p.  38. 


viii.3,ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  39 

truth  which  is  the  centre  and  core  of  the  whole  matter 
remains,  and  that  central  truth  is  this,  that  it  was  when 
he  drew  near  to  Damascus  and  the  crowning  act  of 
violence  seemed  at  hand,  then  the  Lord  put  forth  His 
power — as  He  so  often  still  does  just  when  men  are 
about  to  commit  some  dire  offence — arrested  the  per- 
secutor, and  then,  amid  the  darkness  of  that  abounding 
light,  there  rose  upon  the  vision  of  the  astonished  Saul 
at  Caucabe,  "  the  place  of  the  star,"  that  true  Star  of 
Bethlehem  which  never  ceased  its  clear  shining  for  him 
till  he  came  unto  the  perfect  day.^ 

IV.  Lastly  we  have  the  actual  conversion  of  the 
Apostle  and  the  circumstances  of  it.  We  have  mention 
made  in  this  connexion  of  the  light,  the  voice,  and 
the  conversation.  These  leading  circumstances  are 
described  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  the  three  great 
accounts  in  the  ninth,  in  the  twenty-second,  and  in  the 
twenty-sixth  chapters.  There  are  minute  differences 
between  them,  but  only  such  differences  as  are  natural 
between  the  verbal  descriptions  given  at  different  times 
by  a  truthful  and  vigorous  speaker,  who,  conscious  of 
honest  purpose,  did  not  stop  to  weigh  his  every  word. 
All  three  accounts  tell  of  the  light ;  they  all  agree  on  that. 
St.  Paul  in  his  speeches  at  Jerusalem  unhesitatingly 
declares  that  the  light  which  he  beheld  was  a  super- 
natural one,  above  the  brightness,  the  fierce,  intolerable 
brightness  of  a  Syrian  sun  at  midday ;  and  boldly 
asserts  that  the  attendants  and  escort  who  were  with 
him  saw  the  light.  Those  who  disbelieve  in  the  super- 
natural reject,  of  course,  this  assertion,  and  resolve  the 
light  into  a  fainting  fit  brought  upon  Saul  by  the  burning 


'  The  question  of  the  site  of  the  conversion  is  discussed  at  length  in 
Lewin's  S(.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  49. 


40  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

heat,  or  into  a  passing  sirocco  blast  from  the  Arabian 
desert.  But  the  sincere  and  humble  believer  may 
fairly  ask,  Could  a  fainting  fit  or  a  breath  of  hot  wind 
change  a  man  who  had  stood  out  against  Stephen's 
eloquence  and  Stephen's  death  and  the  witnessed 
sufferings  and  patience  displayed  by  the  multitudes  of 
men  and  women  whom  he  had  pursued  unto  the  death  ? 
But  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  discuss  these  questions  in 
any  controversial  spirit.  Time  and  space  would  fail  to 
treat  of  them  aright,  specially  as  they  have  been  fully 
discussed  already  in  works  like  Lord  Lyttelton  on 
the  conversion  of  St.  Paul,  wholly  devoted  to  such 
aspects  of  these  events.-^  But,  looking  at  them  from  a 
believer's  point  of  view,  we  can  see  good  reasons 
why  the  supernatural  light  should  have  been  granted. 
Next  to  the  life  and  death  and  resurrection  of  our 
Lord,  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  was  the  most  im- 
portant event  the  world  ever  saw.  Our  Lord  made 
to  the  fiery  persecutor  a  special  revelation  of  Himself 
in    the   mode  of   His  existence  in  the    unseen   world. 


'  Lord  Lyttelton's  Observations  on  the  Conversion  of  St.  Paul  is  a 
work  now  almost  unknown  to  ordinary  students  of  the  Bible.  It  was 
written  in  the  reign  of  George  II.  by  the  Lord  Lyttelton  of  that  day 
famous  as  a  historian  and  a  poet.  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  it  that  it  is  "  a 
treatise  to  which  infidelity  has  never  been  able  to  fabricate  a  specious 
answer."  It  will  be  found  reprinted  in  a  cheap  and  handy  shape  by 
the  Religious  Tract  Society,  with  a  valuable  preface  by  the  well-known 
Henry  Rogers.  Lord  Lyttelton  touches  upon  the  subject  of  the  light 
seen  by  St.  Paul  on  p.  164,  and  then  adds,  "That  God  should  work 
miracles  for  the  establishment  of  a  most  holy  religion  which,  from  the 
insuperable  difficulties  that  stood  in  the  way  of  it,  could  not  have  estab- 
lished itself  without  such  an  assistance,  is  no  way  repugnant  to  human 
reason ;  but  that  without  any  miracles  such  things  (as  the  light  above 
the  brightness  of  the  sun  and  St.  Paul's  blindness)  should  have  happened 
as  no  adequate  natural  causes  can  be  as=;igned  for  is  what  human  reason 
cannot  believe." 


viii.3,ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  41 

in  the  reality,  truth,  and  fulness  of  His  humanity, 
such  as  He  never  made  to  any  other  human  being. 
The  special  character  of  the  revelation  shows  the 
importance  that  Christ  attached  to  the  person  and  the 
personal  character  of  him  who  was  the  object  of  that 
revelation.  Just,  then,  as  we  maintain  that  there  was 
a  fitness  when  there  was  an  Incarnation  of  God  that 
miracles  should  attend  it ;  so,  too,  when  the  greatest 
instrument  and  agent  in  propagating  a  knowledge  of 
that  Incarnation  was  to  be  converted,  it  was  natural 
that  a  supernatural  agency  should  have  been  employed. 
And  then  when  the  devout  mind  surveys  the  records  of 
Scripture  how  similar  we  see  St.  Paul's  conversion  to 
have  been  to  other  great  conversions.  Moses  is  con- 
verted from  mere  worldly  thoughts  and  pastoral  labours 
on  which  his  soul  is  bent,  and  sent  back  to  tasks  which 
ne  had  abandoned  for  forty  years,  to  the  great  work  of 
freeing  the  people  of  God  and  leading  them  to  the  Land 
of  Promise ;  and  then  a  vision  is  granted,  where  light, 
a  supernatural  light,  the  light  of  the  burning  bush,  is 
manifested.  Isaiah  and  Daniel  had  visions  granted  to 
them  when  a  great  work  was  to  be  done  and  a  great 
witness  had  to  be  borne,  and  supernatural  light  and 
glory  played  a  great  part  in  their  cases.^  When  the 
Lord  was  born  in  Bethlehem,  and  the  revelation  of 
the  Incarnate  God  had  to  be  made  to  humble  faith  and 
lowly  piety,  then  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  a  light  from  out 
God's  secret  temple,  shone  forth  to  lead  the  worshippers 
to  Bethlehem.  And  so,  too,  in  St.  Paul's  case ;  a  world's 
spiritual  welfare  was  at  stake,  a  crisis  in  the  world's 
spiritual  history,  a  great  turning-point  in  the  Divine  plan 
of  salvation  had  arrived,  and  it  was  most  fitting  that  the 

'  See  Exod.  iii.,  Isa.  vi.,  and  Dan.  x. 


42  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

veil  which  shrouds  the  unseen  from  mortal  gaze  should 
be  drawn  back  for  a  moment,  and  that  not  Saul  alone 
but  his  attendants  should  stand  astonished  at  the  glory 
of  the  light  above  the  brightness  of  the  sun  which 
accompanied  Christ's  manifestation.^ 

Then,  again,  we  have  the  voice  that  was  heard.  Diffi- 
culties have  been  also  raised  in  this  direction.  In  the 
ninth  chapter  St.  Luke  states  that  the  attendant  escort 
"heard  a  voice";  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  St.  Paul 
states  "  they  that  were  with  me  beheld  indeed  the  light, 
but  they  heard  not  the  voice  of  Him  that  spake  to  me." 
This  inconsistency  is,  however,  a  mere  surface  one. 
Just  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  our  Lord  Himself  reported 
in  John  xii.  28,  29,  where  the  multitude  heard  a  voice 
but  understood  not  its  meaning,  some  saying  that  it 
thundered,  others  that  an  angel  had  spoken,  while 
Christ  alone  understood  and  interpreted  it ;  so  it  was 
in  St.  Paul's  case ;  the  escort  heard  a  noise,  but  the 
Apostle  alone  understood  the  sounds,  and  for  him  alone 
they  formed  articulate  words,  by  him  alone  was  heard 

'  Here  it  may  be  well  to  point  out  that  people  should  not  fancy  that 
their  own  spiritual  experience  must  necessarily  be  like  St.  Paul's. 
Some  persons  have  troubled  themselves  because  they  could  not  say  that 
they  had  passed  exactly  through  the  same  religious  feelings  and  struggles 
as  St.  Paul's.  But  as  no  two  leaves  are  alike  and  as  no  two  careers  are 
exactly  parallel,  so  no  two  spiritual  expeinences  are  exactly  the  same. 
The  true  course  for  any  individual  to  adopt  is  not  to  strive  and  see 
whether  God's  dealings  with  himself  and  the  response  which  his  own 
spirit  has  made  to  the  Divine  Voice  have  been  exactly  like  those  of 
others.  His  true  course  is  rather  to  strive  and  ascertain  whether  he  is 
now  really  following,  obeying,  and  loving  God.  He  may  leave  all 
inquiry  as  to  the  methods  by  which  God  has  guided  his  soul  into  the 
paths  of  peace  to  be  hereafter  resolved  in  the  clear  light  of  eternity. 
Some  God  awakens,  as  He  did  St.  Paul,  by  an  awful  catastrophe  ;  others 
grow  up  before  Him  from  infancy  like  Samuel  and  Timothy ;  others 
God  gradually  changes  from  sin  and  worldliness  to  peace  and  righteous 
ness,  like  Jacob  of  old  time. 


viii.  3,  ix.  i-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  43 

I  the  voice  of  Him  that  spake.  And  the  cause  of  this  is 
explained  by  St.  Paul  himself  in  chapter  xxvi.,  verse  14, 
where  he  tells  King  Agrippa  that  the  voice  spake  to 
him  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  the  ancient  Hebrew  that  is, 
which  St.  Paul  as  a  learned  rabbinical  scholar  could 
understand,  but  which  conveyed  no  meaning  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  temple-police,  the  servants,  and  constables 
of  the  Sanhedrin  who  accompanied  him.i  Many  other 
questions  have  here  been  raised  and  difficulties  without 
end  propounded,  because  we  are  dealing  with  a  region  of 
man's  nature  and  of  God's  domain,  wherewith  we  have 
but  little  acquaintance  and  to  which  the  laws  of  ordinary 
philosophy  do  not  apply.  Was  the  voice  which  Paul 
heard,  was  the  vision  of  Christ  granted  to  him,  sub- 
jective or  objective  ?  is,  for  instance,  one  of  such  idle 
queries.  We  know,  indeed,  that  these  terms  subjective 
and  objective  have  a  meaning  for  ordinary  life.  Sub- 
jective in  such  a  connexion  means  that  which  has  its 
origin,  its  rise,  its  existence  wholly  within  man's  soul ; 
objective  that  which  comes  from  without  and  has  its 
origin  outside  man's  nature.  Objective,  doubtless,  St. 
Paul's  revelation  was  in  this  sense.  His  revelation 
must  have  come  from  outside,  or  else  how  do  we  account 
for  the  conversion  of  the  persecuting  Sanhedrist,  and 
that  in  a  moment  ?  He  had  withstood  every  other 
influence,  and  now  he  yields  himself  in  a  moment  the 


'  The  Rev.  Dr.  Abbott,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  in  a 
learned  work,  Biblical  Essays,  lately  published,  pp.  142  and  146,  points 
out  that  the  lower  classes  of  the  Jewish  population  did  not  understand 
the  ancient  Hebrew,  a  knowledge  of  which  was  in  his  opinion  confined 
to  a  few  scholars.  Cf.  also  p.  168,  where  he  writes,  "  It  deserves  to  be 
noticed  that  for  the  vast  majority  of  the  Palestinians  the  Greek  Bible 
was  the  only  one  accessible.  The  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Hebrew 
was  confined  to  a  few  scholars,  in  addition  to  which  the  Hebrew  books 
were  extremely  expensive." 


44  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


lifelong  willing  captive  of  Christ  when  no  human  vc 
or  argument  or  presence  is  near.  But  then,  if  ask< 
how  did  he  see  Christ  when  he  was  blinded  with  Lhe 
heavenly  glory  ?  how  did  he  speak  to  Christ  when  even 
the  escort  stood  speechless?  we  confess  then  that  we  are 
landed  in  a  region  of  which  we  are  totally  ignorant  and 
are  merely  striving  to  intrude  into  the  things  unseen. 
But  who  is  there  that  will  now  assert  that  the  human 
eye  is  the  only  organ  by  which  man  can  see  ?  that 
the  human  tongue  is  the  only  organ  by  which  the  spirit 
can  converse  ?  The  investigations  of  modern  psycho- 
logy have  taught  men  to  be  somewhat  more  modest 
than  they  were  a  generation  or  two  ago,  when  man  in 
his  conceit  thought  that  he  had  gained  the  very  utmost 
limits  of  science  and  of  knowledge.  These  investiga- 
tions have  led  men  to  realise  that  there  are  vast  tracts 
of  an  unknown  country,  man's  spiritual  and  mental 
nature,  yet  to  be  explored,  and  even  then  there  must 
always  remain  regions  where  no  human  student  can 
ever  venture  and  whence  no  traveller  can  ever  return 
to  tell  the  tale.  But  all  these  regions  are  subject  to 
God's  absolute  sway,  and  vain  will  be  our  efforts  to 
determine  the  methods  of  his  actions  in  a  sphere  of 
which  we  are  well-nigh  completely  ignorant.  For  the 
Christian  it  will  be  sufficient  to  accept  on  the  testimony 
of  St.  Paul,  confirmed  by  Ananias,  his  earliest  Christian 
teacher,  that  Jesus  Christ  was  seen  by  hira,^  and  that 
a  voice  was  heard  for  the  first  time  in  the  silence  of 


'  There  is  nothing  about  St.  Paul's  seeing  the  Lord  in  the  narrative 
of  the  conversion  in  Acts  ix.  4-7  ;  but  St.  Paul  asserts  that  he  saw  Christ, 
in  his  speech  befoi'e  Agrippa,  when  he  represents  our  Lord  as  saying 
(xxvi.  16)  :  "  For  to  this  end  have  I  appeared  unto  thee  to  appoint 
thee  a  minister,"  etc.  And  again  in  i  Cor.  xv.  8,  "  And  last  of  all, 
as  unto  one  born   out   of  due  time,  He  appeared  to  me  also"  ;  with 


viii.  3,  ix.  i-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTC  '  .  45 

his  soul  which  never  ceased  to  speak  until  the  things  f 
of  time  and  sense  were  exchanged  for  the  full  fruition  \ 
of  Christ's  glorious  presence. 

And  then,  lastly,  we  have  the  conversation  held  with 
the  trembling  penitent.  St.  Luke's  account  of  it  in  the 
ninth  chapter  is  much  briefer  than  St.  Paul's  own  fuller 
statement  in  the  twenty-sixth  chapter,  and  much  of  it 
will  most  naturally  come  under  our  notice  at  a  subse- 
quent period.  Here,  however,  we  note  the  expressive 
fact  that  the  very  name  by  which  the  future  apostle  was 
addressed  by  the  Lord  was  Hebrew  :  "  Saul,  Saul,  why 
persecutest  thou  Me."  It  is  a  point  that  our  English 
translation  cannot  bring  out,  no  matter  how  accurate. 
In  the  narrative  hitherto  the  name  used  has  been  the 
Greek  form,  and  he  has  been  regularly  called  Xav\o<i. 
But  now  the  Lord  appeals  to  the  very  foundations  of 
his  religious  life,  and  throws  him  back  upon  the  thought 
and  manifestation  of  God  as  revealed  of  old  time  to 
His  greatest  leader  and  champion  under  the  old 
covenant,  to  Moses  in  the  bush;  and  so  Christ  uses 
not  his  Greek  name  but  the  Hebrew,  XaovK,  XdovX. 
Then  we  have  St.  Paul's  query,  "  Who  art  Thou, 
Lord  ? "  coupled  with  our  Lord's  reply,  "  I  am  Jesus 
whom  thou  persecutest,"  or,  as  St.  Paul  himself  puts  it 
in  Acts  xxii.  8,  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whom  thou 
persecutest."  Ancient  expositors  have  well  noted  the 
import  of  this  language.     Saul  asks  who  is  speaking  to 


which  should  be  compared  the  words  of  Ananias  (ix.  17) :  "The  Lord 
who  appeared  unto  thee  in  the  way  which  thou  earnest";  and  those  of 
Barnal)as  (ix.  27):  *'But  Barnabas  declared  unto  them  how  Saul  had 
seen  tlie  Lord  in  the  way. '  The  reader  would  do  well  to  consult 
Lewin's  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv,,  p.  50,  for  a  learned  note  concern- 
ing the  apparent  inconsistencies  in  the  various  narratives  of  the 
conversion. 


46  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

>him,  and  the  answer  is  not,  The  Eternal  Word  who  is 
ifrom  everlasting,  the  Son  of  the  Infinite  One  who  ruleth 
|in  the  heavens.  Saul  would  have  acknowledged  at 
once  that  his  efforts  were  not  aimed  at  Him.  But  the 
speaker  cuts  right  across  the  line  of  Saul's  prejudices 
and  feelings,  for  He  says,  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth," 
whom  you  hate  so  intensely  and  against  whom  all 
your  efforts  are  aimed,  emphasizing  those  points 
against  which  his  Pharisaic  prejudices  must  have 
most  of  all  revolted.  As  an  ancient  English  com- 
mentator who  lived  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago, 
treating  of  this  passage,  remarks  with  profound  spiritual 
insight,  Saul  is  called  in  these  words  to  view  the  depths 
of  Christ's  humiliation  that  he  may  lay  aside  the  scales 
of  his  own  spiritual  pride.^  And  then  finally  we  have 
Christ  identifying  Himself  with  His  people,  and  echoing 
for  us  from  heaven  the  language  and  teaching  He  had 
used  upon  earth.  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth  whom . 
thou  persecutest "  are  words  embodying  exactly  the 
same  teaching  as  the  solemn  language  in  the  parable  of 
the  Judgment  scene  contained  in  Matthew  xxv,  31-46: 
"  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  these  My  brethren, 
ye  did  it  unto  Me."  Christ  and  His  people  are  ever- 
more one ;  their  trials  are  His  trials,  their  sorrows 
are  His  sorrows,  their  strength  is  His  strength. 
What  marvellous  power  to  sustain  the  soul,  to  confirm 
the  weakness,  to  support  and  quicken  the  fainting 
courage  of  Christ's  people,  we  find  in  this  expression, 
"  I  am  Jesus  whom  thou  persecutest "  !  They  enable 
us  to  understand  the  undaunted  spirit  which  henceforth 


•  See  Cornelius  a  Lapide  on  Acts  ix.  5,  quoting  from  Bede ;  and  St. 
Chrysostoni  in  Cramer's  Catena,  p.  152,  as  quoted  in  Conybeare  and 
Howson's  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  iii  (London,  1877). 


viii,  3,  Ix.  1-6.]    CONVERSION  OF  THE  PERSECUTOR.  47 

animated  the  new  convert,  and  declare  the  secret  spring 
of  those  triumphant  expressions,  "  In  all  these  things 
we  are  more  than  conquerors,"  "Thanks  be  to  God 
which  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  If  Christ  in  the  supra-sensuous  world  and 
we  in  the  world  of  time  are  eternally  one,  what  matter 
the  changes  and  chances  of  earth,  the  persecutions 
and  trials  of  time  ?  They  may  inflict  upon  us  a  little 
temporary  inconvenience,  but  they  are  all  shared  by 
One  whose  love  makes  them  His  own  and  whose 
grace  amply  sustains  us  beneath  their  burden.  Christ's 
people  faint  not  therefore,  for  they  are  looking  not  at 
the  things  seen,  which  are  temporal,  but  at  the  things 
unseen,  which  are  eternal. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  NEW  CONVERT  AND  HIS  HUMAN   TEACHER. 

"  Now  there  was  a  certain  disciple  at  Damascus,  named  Ananias  ;  and 
the  Lord  said  unto  him  in  a  vision,  Ananias.  And  he  said,  Behold,  I 
am  here,  Lord.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Arise,  and  go  to  the 
street  which  is  called  Straight,  and  inquire  in  the  house  of  Judas  for 
one  named  Saul,  a  man  of  Tarsus  :  for  behold,  he  prayeth." — Acts  ix. 

lO,     II. 

SAUL  of  Tarsus  was  converted  outside  the  city,  but 
the  work  was  only  begun  there.  Christ  would  put 
honour  upon  the  work  of  human  ministry,  and  there- 
fore He  directs  the  stricken  sinner  to  continue  his 
journey  and  enter  into  Damascus,  where  he  should  be 
instructed  in  his  future  course  of  action,  though  Christ 
Himself  might  have  told  him  all  that  was  needful.  It 
was  much  the  same  on  the  occasion  of  the  so-called 
conversion  of  Cornelius,  the  pious  centurion.^  The 
Lord  made  a  revelation  to  the  centurion,  but  it  was 
only  a  revelation  directing  him  to  send  for  Peter  who 
should  instruct  him  in  the  way  of  salvation.  God 
instituted  a  human  ministry  that  man  might  gain  light 
and  knowledge  by  the  means  and  assistance  of  his 
brother-man,   and    therefore    in    both    cases  the  Lord 

'  Conversion  is  scarcely  a  fit  word  to  apply  to  the  Lord's  dealings 
with  Cornelius.  He  had  evidently  been  converted  long  before  the 
angelic  message  and  Peter's  preaching,  else  whence  his  prayers  and 
devotion  ?  The  Lord  simply  made  by  St.  Peter  a  fuller  revelation  of 
I  lis  will  to  a  soul  longing  to  know  more  of  God. 


X.  lo,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  49 

points  the  anxious  inquirer  to  men  like  themselves, 
who  could  speak  to  them  in  Christ's  stead  and 
guide  them  into  fuller  knowledge.  Why  could  not 
Christ  have  revealed  the  whole  story  of  His  life,  the 
full  meaning  of  His  doctrine,  without  human  aid  or 
intervention,  save  that  He  wished,  even  in  the  very 
case  of  the  messenger  whose  call  and  apostleship  were 
neither  by  man  nor  through  man,  to  honour  the  human 
agency  which  He  had  ordained  for  the  dissemination 
and  establishment  of  the  gospel.  If  immediate  revelation 
and  the  conscious  presence  of  God  and  the  direct  work 
of  the  Spirit  could  ever  have  absolved  penitent  sinners 
from  using  a  human  ministry  and  seeking  direction  and 
help  from  mortals  like  themselves,  surely  it  was  in 
the  cases  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  and  Cornelius  of  Caesarea ; 
and  yet  in  both  cases  a  very  important  portion  of  the 
revelation  made  consisted  in  a  simple  intimation  where 
human  assistance  could  be  found. ^ 

Saul  after  the  vision  rose  up  from  the  earth  and 
was  led  by  the  hand  into  Damascus.  He  was  there 
three  days  without  sight,  wherein  he  neither  did  eat 
nor  drink.  This  period  of  his  life  and  this  terrible 
experience  is  regarded  by  many  as  the  time  to  which 
may  be  traced  the  weakness  of  eyesight  and  the  delicate 
vision  under  which  he  ever  afterwards  suffered.     The 

'  We  should  carefully  observe,  however,  that  there  is  a  marked 
difference  between  the  cases  of  Cornelius  and  Saul.  An  angel  appeared 
to  Cornelius,  Christ  Himself  to  Saul.  St.  Peter  is  sent  to  Cornelius  to 
instruct  him  in  the  revelation  made  by  Christ.  That  revelation  was 
made  by  Christ  Himself  to  Saul  in  the  vision  by  the  way,  during  the 
three  days  of  his  blindness,  and  probably  during  his  stay  in  Arabia. 
Ananias  was  sent  to  Saul  merely  to  baptize  him,  and  predict  his  future. 
"  Enter  into  the  city  and  there  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  shalt  do" 
is  our  Lord's  direction  to  Saul.  St.  Paul's  knowledge  of  Christ  was 
neither  by  man  nor  through  man.  His  knowledge  even  about  the  in- 
stitution of  the  sacraments  was  by  immediate  revelation  :  see  i  Cor.  xi.  23. 

VOL.    II.  4 


50  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

question  has  often  been  raised,  What  was  St.   Paul's 
thorn,  or  rather  stake,  in  the  flesh  ?     Various  opinions 
have  been  hazarded,  but  that  which  seems  to  me  most 
likely  to  be  true  identifies  the  thorn  or  stake  with  severe 
ophthalmia.     Six  substantial  reasons  are  brought  for- 
ward by  Archdeacon   Farrar  in   defence  of  this  view, 
(i)  When  writing  to  the  Galatians  St.  Paul  imphes  that 
his  infirmity  might  well  have  made  him  an  object  of 
loathing  to  them  ;  and  this  is  specially  the  case  with 
ophthalmia    in    the  East  (see   Gal.    iv.    14).     (2)  This 
supposition    again    gives    a    deeper    meaning    to    the 
Apostle's   words   to   these   same   Galatians   that   they 
would  at  the  beginning  of  their  Christian  career  have 
plucked  out  their  eyes  to  place   them    at    his    service 
(Gal.  iv.    15).     (3)  The  term   "a.  stake  in  the  flesh" 
is  quite  appropriate  to  the  disease,  which  imparts  to  the 
eyes   the  appearance    of  having    been    wounded  by  a 
sharp  splinter.      (4)   Ophthalmia  of  that   kind   might 
have  caused  epilepsy.     (5)  It  would  explain  the  words 
"  See  with  how  large  letters  I  have  written  unto  you 
with  mine  own  hand,"  as  a  natural  reference  to  the 
difficulties   the   Apostle   experienced    in   writing,   and 
would  account  for  his  constant  use  of  amanuenses  or 
secretaries  in  writing  his  Epistles,  as  noted,  for  instance, 
in  Romans  xvi.  22  and  implied  in  I  Corinthians  xvi.  21. 
(6)  Ophthalmia  would  account  for  St.  Paul's  ignorance 
of  the  person  of  the  high  priest  (Acts  xxiii.  5).^     This 
question   has,  however,  been   a  moot  point  since  the 
days  of  the  second  century,  when  Irenaeus  of  Lyons 
discussed    it    in    his    great    work    against    Heresies, 
book    v.,    ch.    iii.,    and    Tertullian    suggested  that   St, 


'  See  Tertullian's  De  Fudicitia,  §   13,  and  compare  Bishop  Light- 
foot's 'Ca/rt'^rVrwj',  p.  183  note. 


ix.  lo,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  51, 

Paul's  stake  in  the  flesh  was  simply  an  exaggerated 
head-ache  or  ear-ache/ 

Let  us  now, '  however,  turn  to  the  more  certain 
facts  brought  before  us  in  the  words  of  the  sacred 
narrative.  St.  Paul  was  led  by  the  hand  into  Damas- 
cus just  as  afterwards,  on  account,  doubtless,  of  the 
same  bodily  infirmity  dating  from  this  crisis,  he  "  was 
sent  forth  to  go  as  far  as  to  the  sea,"  and  then 
"  was  conducted  as  far  as  Athens "  (cf.  Acts  xvii. 
10,  14,  15).  From  this  time  forth  the  kindly  assistance 
of  friends  and  companions  became  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  Apostle  if  his  footsteps  were  to  be  guided 
aright,  and  hence  it  is  that  he  felt  solitude  such  as  he 
endured  at  Athens  a  very  trying  time  because  he  had  no 
sense  of  security  whenever  he  ventured  to  walk  abroad. 
He  became,  in  fact,  a  blind  man  striving  to  thread 
his  way  through  the  crowded  footpaths  of  life.  The 
high  priest's  commissary  must  then  have  drawn  near 
to  Damascus  under  very  different  circumstances  from 
those  which  fancy  pictured  for  him  a  few  days  before. 
We  know  not  by  what  gate  he  entered  the  city.  We 
only  know  that  he  made  his  way  to  the  house  of  Judas, 
where  he  remained  for  three  days  and  three  nights, 
with  his  whole  soul  so  wrapt  up  in  the  wonders 
revealed  to  him  that  he  had  no  thoughts  for  bodily 
wants  and  no  sense  of  their  demands. 

The  sacred  narrative  has  been  amply  vindicated  so 
far  as  its  topographical  accuracy  is  concerned.  Saul, 
as  he  was  led  by  the  hand,  instructed  his  escort  to  go 

'  See  Dr.  FaiTar's  long  Excursus  X,,  vol.  i.,  p.  652,  in  his  Life  of 
St.  Paul,  for  a  discussion  of  this  question.  There  is  a  portrait  of 
St.  Paul  in  Lewin's  St.  Paul,  ii.,  210,  which  shows  him  as  blear-eyed. 
It  is  engraved  from  a  Roman  diptych  of  the  fourth  century.  Light- 
foot  takes  quite  another  view  of  the  thorn  in  his  Gahitians,  pp.  183-8: 


52  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  the  house  of  Judas,  a  leading  man  we  may  be  sure 
among  the  Jews  of  Damascus.  He  dwelt  in  Straight 
Street,  and  that  street  remains  to-day,  as  in  St.  Paul's 
time,  a  thoroughfare  running  in  a  direct  line  from  the 
eastern  to  the  western  gate  of  the  city.  Like  all  Orien- 
tal cities  which  have  fallen  under  Turkish  dominion, 
Damascus  no  longer  presents  the  stately,  well-preserved, 
and  flourishing  aspect  which  it  had  in  Roman  times  ; 
and,  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  city.  Straight 
Street  has  lost  a  great  deal  of  the  magnificent  propor- 
tions which  it  once  possessed.  Straight  Street  in  St. 
Paul's  day  extended  from  the  eastern  to  the  western 
gate,  completely  intersecting  the  city.  It  then  was  a 
noble  thoroughfare  one  hundred  feet  broad,  divided  by 
Corinthian  colonnades  into  three  avenues,  the  central 
one  for  foot  passengers,  the  side  passages  for  chariots 
and  horses  going  in  opposite  directions.  It  was  to 
a  house  in  this  principal  street  in  the  city,  the  habi- 
tation of  an  opulent  and  distinguished  Jew,  that  the 
escort  brought  the  blind  emissary  of  the  Sanhedrin, 
and  here  they  left  him  to  await  the  development  of 
God's  purposes.^ 

I.  Let  us  now  consider  the  persons  which  cluster 
round  the  new  convert,  and  specially  the  agent  whom 
Christ  used  in  the  reception  of  Saul  into  the  Church, 

'  "In  the  Roman  age,  and  up  to  the  period  of  the  (Mahometan) 
Conquest,  a  noble  street  extended  in  a  straight  line  from  Bab-el-Jabyah 
(the  West  gate)  to  Bab  Shurky  (the  East  gate),  thus  completely  inter- 
secting the  city.  It  was  divided  by  Corinthian  colonnades  into  three 
avenues,  of  which  the  central  was  for  foot  passengers,  and  of  the  others 
one  was  used  for  chariots  and  horsemen  proceeding  eastward,  and  the 
second  for  those  going  in  the  opposite  direction.  1  have  been  enabled 
to  trace  the  remains  of  the  colonnades  at  various  places  over  nearly 
one-third  of  the  length  of  this  street.  Wherever  excavations  are  made 
in  the  line  fragments  of  columns  are  found  in  situ,  at  the  depth,  in 


ix.io,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  53 

2 

and  see  what  Scripture  or  tradition  tells  about  them. 
One  man  stands  prominent ;  his  name  was  Ananias,  a 
common  one  enough  among  the  Jews,  as  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  has  already  shown  us,  for  when  we  have 
surveyed  the  first  beginnings  of  sin  and  moral  failure  in 
the  Jerusalem  Church  we  have  found  that  an  Ananias 
with  Sapphira  his  wife  was  connected  therewith.^ 
This  Ananias  of  Damascus  deserves  special  attention, 
for  his  case  reveals  to  us  a  good  deal  of  primitive 
Church  history  and  is  connected  with  many  ancient 
traditions.  Let  us  first  strive  to  gain  all  the  infor- 
mation we  can  about  him  from  the  direct  statements 
•of  Scripture  and  the  necessary  or  legitimate  deductions 
from  the  same.  Ananias  was  a  Christian  Jew  of 
Damascus.  He  must  have  held  a  leading  position  in 
the  local  Christian  Assembly  in  that  city,  within  five 
years  of  the  Ascension,  for  not  only  did  our  Lord  select 
him  as  His  agent  or  medium  of  communication  when 
deahng  with  the  new  convert,  but  Ananias  was  well 
acquainted,  by  information  derived  from  many  persons, 
with  the  course  of  conduct  pursued  at  Jerusalem  by 
Saul,  and  knew  of  the  commission  lately  intrusted  to 
him  by  the  high  priest.  Ananias  was  probably  the 
head  or  chief  teacher  of  the  local  Christian  or  Nazarene 

some  places,  of  ten  feet  and  more  below  the  present  surface,  so  great  has 
been  the  accumulation  of  rubbish  during  the  course  of  ages.  There  can 
scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  this  is  '  the  street  called  Straight '  referred  to 
in  the  history  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  Its  extreme  length  is  about  an 
English  mile,  and  its  breadth  must  have  exceeded  loofeet." — Porter's 
Damascus,  p.  47. 

'  Josephus,  in  his  Antiquities,  xx.,  23,  tells  us  of  an  Ananias,  a  Jewish 
merchant,  who  was  instrumental  in  the  conversion  of  Helena,  Queen  of 
Adiabene.  The  name  Ananias  signifies  "  Pleasing  to  God."  Ananias 
was  also  the  name  of  the  messenger  who  is  said  to  have  conveyed  the 
pretended  letter  of  Abgar,  King  of  Edessa,  to  Christ.  See  The  Apocry- 
■hhal  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  by  R.  A.  Lipsius  (Leipsic,  1891),  p.  274. 


54  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


synagogue.  At  the  same  time  he  was  also  in  all  pro- 
bability one  of  the  original  company  of  Jerusalem 
Christians  who  had  been  scattered  abroad  by  the  first 
great  persecution.  We  are  told  in  Acts  xi.  19  that 
"they  that  were  scattered  abroad  upon  the  tribulation 
that  arose  about  Stephen  travelled  as  far  as  Phoenicia, 
and  Cyprus,  and  Antioch,  speaking  the  word  to  none 
save  only  to  Jews."  Ananias  was  probably  one  of  these 
fugitives  from  Jerusalem  who  came  to  Damascus,  and 
there  sought  refuge  from  the  rage  of  the  destroyer. 
St.  Paul  himself  tells  us  of  the  character  which  Ananias 
sustained  at  Damascus:  "He  was  a  devout  man  accord- 
ing to  the  law,  well  reported  of  by  all  the  Jews  that 
dwell  there"  (ch.  xxii.  12).  It  is  the  character  given  of 
Zacharias,  and  Elisabeth,  and  of  Simeon.  Ananias  was, 
like  all  the  earliest  disciples,  a  rigid  observer  of  the 
minutest  particulars  of  Jewish  ordinances,  though  he 
and  they  alike  rested  upon  Christ  alone  as  their 
hope  of  salvation.  Further  than  this,  the  Scriptures 
tell  us  nothing  save  that  we  can  easily  see  from  the 
words  of  the  various  narratives  of  the  conversion  that 
Ananias  was  a  man  of  that  clear  faith,  that  deep 
spiritual  life  which  enjoyed  perpetual  converse  with  the 
Unseen.  He  was  not  perturbed  nor  dismayed  when 
Christ  revealed  Himself.  He  conversed  calmly  with 
the  heavenly  Visitor,  raised  his  objections,  received 
their  solution,  and  then  departed  in  humble  obedience 
to  fulfil  the  mission  committed  to  him.  There  is  a 
marvellous  strength  and  power  for  the  man  of  any  age 
who  lives,  as  Ananias  did,  with  a  clear  vision  of  the 
eternal  world  constantly  visible  to  the  spiritual  eye. 
Life  or  death,  things  present  or  things  to  come,  the 
world  temporal  or  the  world  spiritual,  all  are  one  to 
him    who    lives    in    the    light    of   God's    countenance 


ix.  lo,  u.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  55 

and  walks  beneath  the  shadow  of  His  wing ;  for  he 
feels  and  knows  that  underneath  are  the  everlasting 
Arms,  and  he  therefore  discharges  his  tasks  with  an 
assured  calmness,  a  quiet  dignity,  a  heavenly  strength 
of  which  the  tempest-tossed  and  feverish  children  of 
time  know  nothing.  Beyond  these  facts  and  these 
traits  of  character,  which  we  can  read  between  the  hnes 
of  Holy  Scripture,  we  are  told  nothing  of  Ananias.^ 
But  tradition  has  not  been  so  reticent.  The  ancient 
Church  delighted  to  gather  up  every  notice  and  every 
story  concerning  the  early  soldiers  of  the  Cross,  and 
Ananias  of  Damascus  was  not  forgotten.  The  Martyr- 
ologies  both  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches  give 
us  long  accounts  of  him.  They  tell  that  he  was  born 
in  Damascus,  and  make  him  one  of  the  seventy 
disciples,  which  is  not  at  all  improbable.  Then  they 
describe  him  at  one  time  as    bishop,  at  another  time 


'  St.  Chrysostom,  in  his  Hoinilies  on  the  Acts,  notes  the  spiritual 
eminence  of  this  hidden  and  unknown  disciple.  In  his  nineteenth 
Homily  he  observes  that  when  St.  Philip,  one  of  the  seven,  was  sent  to 
baptize  the  eunuch,  Christ  did  not  appear  but  merely  sent  an  angel  to 
the  evangelist  ;  but  Christ  Himself  appeared  to  Ananias,  and  opened  out 
His  whole  will  to  him  about  the  future  of  St.  Paul.  His  conversation 
with  our  Lord  was,  too,  that  of  one  accustomed  to  Divine  visitations 
and  communion  vnth  Heaven.  See  Massutius  on  the  Life  of  St.  Paul, 
p.  107.  Massutius  was  a  Jesuit  commentator,  whose  writings  are  often 
rich  in  spiritual  suggestiveness.  He  published  his  Vita  S.  Pauli  Apostoli 
in  1633.  In  the  first  and  ninth  chapters  of  the  second  book  he  has 
many  acute  and  learned  remarks  upon  Ananias  and  his  history.  The 
calming  effect  upon  life's  fever  of  spiritual  religion  and  close  converse 
with  God  is  a  point  often  dwelt  upon  in  Scripture.  The  Old  Testament 
prophets  knew  this  secret  of  a  peaceful  life  right  well.  Isaiah  often 
sings  of  it,  as  in  ch.  xii.  2,  "  Behold,  God  is  my  salvation ;  I  will  trust, 
and  not  be  afraid  "  ;  in  ch.  xxvi.  3,  "  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect 
peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  Thee";  in  ch.  xxviii.  16,  "He 
that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste";  in  ch.  xl.  31,  "They  that 
wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength ;  they  shall  mount  up 


56  THE    ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

as  a  simple  presbyter,  of  the  Church  at  Damascus. 
They  relate  his  abundant  labours  at  Damascus  and  in 
the  neighbouring  cities,  terminating  with  his  martyrdom 
under  a  Roman  prefect  called  Lucian.^  But  these 
details,  though  they  may  lend  colour  to  the  picture, 
add  nothing  of  spiritual  significance  to  the  information 
vouchsafed  in  Scripture. 

Judas,  into  whose  house  Saul  was  received,  is 
another  person  brought  before  us,  upon  whom  a  certain 
eternity  of  fame  has  been  bestowed  by  his  tem- 
porary connexion  with  the  Apostle.  He  must  have 
been  a  man  of  position  and  wealth  among  the  Jev/s 
of  Damascus  to  receive  the  official  representative  and 
deputy  of  the  high  priest.  It  is  possible  that  he  may 
have  been  numbered  among  those  early  trophies  of 
St.  Paul's  zeal  which  he  won  in  the  earliest  days  of 
his  first  love,  when  he  "  confounded  the  Jews,  proving 


with  wings  as  eagles  ;  they  shall  run,  and  not  be  weaiy ;  they  shall 
walk,  and  not  faint."  Habakkuk  proclaims  it  in  eh.  iii.  17:  "For 
though  the  fig  tree  shall  not  blossom,  neither  shall  fruit  be  in  the  vines ; 
the  labour  of  the  olive  shall  fail,  and  the  fields  shall  yield  no  meat ;  the 
flock  shall  be  cut  ofiF  from  the  fold,  and  there  shall  be  no  herd  in  the 
stalls  :  yet  I  will  rejoice  in  the  Lord,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  my 
salvation."  A  strain  which  St.  Paul  takes  up  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Philippians  when  he  bids  them  (ch.  iv.  6),  "  In  nothing  be  anxious ;  but 
in  everything  by  prayer  and  supplication  with  thanksgiving  let  your 
requests  be  made  known  unto  God  " ;  to  which  he  adds  the  promise,  not 
that  their  requests  shall  be  answered,  for  that  would  often  be  very  un- 
fortunate, but  the  much  more  consoling  one,  "  And  the  peace  of  God, 
which  passeth  all  understanding,  shall  guard  your  hearts  and  your 
thoughts  in  Christ  Jesus."  How  much  calmer  and  sweeter  life  would 
be  did  Christ's  people  thus  realise  their  privileges  as  God's  ancient 
servants  did  !  Ninety  per  cent,  of  life's  worries  and  anxieties  would 
thus  pass  away  for  ever.  Alas  !  how  pagan  nominal  Christians  are  in 
this  respect  ! 

'  See,  for  both   the  Greek  and  Latin   stories  about  Ananias,  Acta 
Sanctorum,  Ed.  Bolland.,  25  Jan.,  ii.,  613. 


ix.  lo,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  57 

that  Jesus  is  Christ."  Judas  has  been  by  some  identi- 
fied with  that  Judas  who  was  sent  with  St.  Paul,  Silas, 
and  Barnabas  as  deputies  to  console  the  Church  at 
Antioch  and  restore  it  to  peace  when  distracted  with 
debates  about  circumcision  (ch.  xv.  22).^ 

And  now,  to  conclude  this  portion  of  our  subject,  we 
may  add  that  the  traditional  houses,  or  at  least  the  sites 
of  the  houses,  of  Ananias  and  Judas,  together  with  the 
fountain  where  St.  Paul  was  baptized,  were  shown  in 
Damascus  till  the  seventeenth  century,  as  Quaresmius, 
a  traveller  of  that  time,  tells  us  that  he  visited  the 
Straight  Street,  which  is  the  bazaar,  and  saw  the  house 
of  Judas,  a  large  and  commodious  building,  with  traces 
of  having  been  once  a  church  and  then  a  mosque ;  that 
he  visited  the  place  of  baptism,  which  is  not  far  off, 
adding  withal  a  ground  plan  of  the  house  of  Ananias. 
Dean  Stanley,  however,  declares  that  the  traditional 
house  of  Judas  is  not  in  the  street  called  Straight  at  all. 
Let  us  turn  aside  from  these  details,  the  mere  fringes  of 
the  story,  to  the  spiritual  heart  and  core  thereof^ 

II.  The  conversation  between  Christ  and  Ananias 
next  claims  our  attention.  Here  we  may  note  that  it 
was  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  Himself  who  appeared  to 
Ananias,  and  when  appearing  makes  the  most  tremen- 
dous claims  for  Himself  and  allows  them  when  made 
by  Ananias.     We  are  so  accustomed  to  the  words  of 

'  Judas  of  Acts  xv.  22  is  surnamed  Barsabbas,  as  is  also  Joseph 
Justus  of  Acts  i.  23.  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  on  Acts  i.,  conjectures  that 
Judas  of  Acts  xv.  may  have  been  the  apostle  of  that  name  and  that 
Jo.seph  Justus  was  his  brother. 

-  The  seventeenth-century  travellers  in  Palestine,  Syria,  and  the 
East  often  give  us  much  valuable  information.  See,  on  the  subject  of 
Damascus,  Quaresmius,  Elucidatio  Terra  Sanctis,  t.  ii.,  lib.  7,  Peregri- 
natio  6,  cap.  3,  with  which  may  be  compared  Radzivilus,  Peregrinatio, 
p.  33,  A.D.  1614.     See  also  Conybeare  and  Howson's  St.  Paul,  ch.  iii. 


58  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


the  narrative  that  we  do  not  recognise  their  bold 
assumptions  and  what  they  imply.  The  Lord  calls 
Ananias,  as  He  called  Samuel  of  old,  and  then  receives 
the  same  answer  as  Samuel  gave,  "  Behold  I  am  here, 
Lord."  Ananias  speaks  to  Jesus  Christ  of  the  disciples, 
and  describes  them  as  "  Thy  saints,  who  call  upon  Thy 
name."  He  knew  that  prayer  to  Jesus  Christ  was 
practised  by  them  and  constituted  their  special  note 
or  mark.  Our  Lord  describes  St.  Paul  "  as  a  chosen 
vessel  unto  Me,  to  bear  My  name  before  the  Gentiles 
and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Israel,  for  /will  show  him 
how  many  things  he  must  suffer  for  My  name's  sake," 
While  again,  when  Ananias  came  into  the  house  of 
Judas,  he  is  so  completely  dominated  by  the  idea  of 
Jesus  Christ,  His  presence,  His  power.  His  mission, 
that  his  words  are,  "  The  Lord  Jesus  hath  sent  me  that 
thou  mayest  receive  thy  sight,  and  be  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost."  In  these  passages  we  have  a  view  of 
primitive  Christianity  and  its  doctrine  as  taught  by 
Christ  Himself,  by  His  earliest  disciples,  and  as 
viewed  and  recorded  by  the  second  generation  of 
Christians,  and  it  is  all  the  same  from  whatever  point 
it  is  looked  at.  The  earliest  form  of  Christianity  was 
Christ  and  nothing  else.  The  personality  of  Christ 
dominated  every  other  idea.  There  was  no  explaining 
away  the  historical  facts  of  His  life,  there  was  no  water- 
ing down  His  supernatural  actions  and  claims ;  the  Lord 
Jesus — and  His  ordinary  human  name  was  used — the 
Lord  Jesus,  whom  the  Jews  had  known  as  the  carpenter's 
son,  and  had  rejected  as  the  prophet  of  Nazareth,  and 
had  crucified  as  the  pretended  king  of  Israel,  He  was 
for  Ananias  of  Damascus  the  supernatural  Being  who 
now  ruled  the  universe,  and  struck  down  the  persecutor 
of  His  people,  and  sent  His  messengers  and  apostles 


IX.  lo,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  59 


that  they  might  with  Divine  power  heal  the  wounded 
and  comfort  the  broken-hearted.  Ananias  felt  no  diffi- 
culty in  identifying  Jesus  the  despised,  the  crucified, 
with  the  Lord  of  glory  who  had  appeared  to  him,  upon 
whose  name  he  called  and  with  whom  he  communed. 
Jesus  Christ  was  not  for  him  a  dream  or  a  ghost,  or  a 
passing  appearance,  or  a  distinguished  teacher,  or  a 
mighty  prophet,  whose  spirit  lived  with  the  souls  of  the 
good  and  blessed  of  every  age  at  rest  in  paradise.  The 
Jesus  of  Ananias  was  no  inhabitant  or  child  of  earth, 
no  matter  how  pure  and  exalted.  The  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
was  the  Being  of  beings,  who  had  a  just  right  to  call 
God's  people  "  His  saints,"  and  to  describe  the  great 
work  of  His  messengers  and  ministers  to  be  that  of 
"  bearing  His  name  before  the  Gentiles,"  because  the 
Christianity  of  Ananias  and  of  the  earliest  Church  was 
no  poor,  weak,  diluted  system  of  mere  natural  religion 
legarding  Jesus  Christ  as  a  Divine  prophet,  but  as 
nothing  more.  It  theorised  not,  indeed,  about  the  Incar- 
nation and  the  modes  of  the  Divine  existence.  It  was 
too  much  wrapped  up  in  adoring  the  Divine  manifesta- 
tions to  trouble  itself  about  such  questions,  which  came 
to  the  front  when  love  waxed  cold  and  men  had  time 
to  analyse  and  debate.  For  Ananias  and  for  men  like 
him  it  was  sufficient  to  know  that  Jesus  Christ  was  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  For  them  and  for  the  earliest 
Church  that  one  fact  embodied  the  whole  of  Christianity. 
Jesus  Christ,  the  same  when  living  in  Galilee,  suffering 
in  Jerusalem,  ascending  from  Olivet,  reigning  on  the 
right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high,  or  manifesting 
Himself  to  His  people,  was  the  beginning  and  end  of 
all  religion. 

This  is  a  very  important  point  to  insist  upon  in  the 
present  age,  when  men  have  endeavoured  to  represent 


6o  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


the  religion  of  the  primitive  Church  in  quite  a  different 
light,  and  to  teach  that  St.  Paul  was  the  inventor  of 
that  dogmatic  system  which  insists  upon  the  supreme 
importance  and  the  essential  deity  of  the  Person  of 
Jesus  Christ.  St.  Luke's  narrative  in  this  passage 
seems  to  me  quite  decisive  against  such  a  theory,  and 
shows  us  how  Christianity  struck  an  independent  mind 
like  that  of  Ananias,  and  how  it  was  taught  at  a 
distant  Christian  Church  Hke  Damascus  within  five 
or  at  most  seven  years  after  the  Ascension  of  Jesus 
Christ.^ 

Then,  again,  we  have  in  the  vision  granted  to  Ananias 
and  the  revelation  made  to  him  a  description  of  Christ's 
disciples.  The  description  is  a  twofold  one,  coming  on 
the  one  hand  from  Christ,  and  on  the  other  from 
Ananias,  and  yet  they  both  agree.  Ananias  describes 
the  religion  of  Christ  when  he  says,  "Lord,  I  have 
heard  from  many  of  this  man,  how  much  evil  he  did 
to  Thy  saints  at  Jerusalem  "  ;  and  then  he  proceeds  to 
identify  His  "  saints  "  with  those  that  called  on  Christ's 
name  at  Damascus.  We  have  already  noted  prayer  to 
Christ  as  a  distinguishing  feature  of  His  people^;  but 
here  we  find,  for  the  first  time  in  the  New  Testament, 
the  term  "  saints  "  applied  to  the  ordinary  followers  of 
Christ,  though  in  a  short  time  it  seems  to  have  become 
the  usual  designation  for  the  adherents  of  the  crucified 
Redeemer,  as  we  shall  see  by  a  reference  to  Rom.  i.  7 ; 
I  Cor.  i.  2  ;  Eph.  i.  i,  and  to  numerous  other  passages 
scattered  throughout  the  Epistles.     Our  Lord  Himself 

'  Massutius,  loc.  cit.,  has  a  long  chapter  (book  ii.,  ch.  i.)  on  the  date 
of  St.  Paul's  conversion.  See  Findlay's  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  pp.  5,  6, 
for  a  concise  statement  of  the  aiguments  concerning  it.  Lewin's  Fasti 
Sacri.  pp.  Ixvi.  and  253,  contains  long  dissertations  upon  this  point,  a 
simple  reference  to  which  must  suffice. 

^.See  vol.  i.,  pp.  338-41. 


ix.  lo,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  6i 

sanctions  the  use  of  this  title,  and  appHes  it  Himself  in 
a  different  shape  in  the  fuller  account  of  the  divine 
words  given  us  by  St.  Paul  in  his  speech  before  King 
Agrippa  (ch.  xxvi.  i8).  Christ  tells  St.  Paul  of  his 
destined  work  "  to  turn  the  Gentiles  from  darkness 
to  light,  that  they  may  receive  an  inheritance  among 
them  which  are  sanctified  by  faith  that  is  in  Me."  The 
followers  of  Christ  were  recognised  as  saints  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word  saint — that  is,  as  separated, 
dedicated,  consecrated  persons,  who  had  been  made  to 
drink  into  one  Divine  Spirit,  had  been  made  partakers 
of  a  new  life,  had  been  admitted  to  a  kingdom  of  light 
and  a  fellowship  of  love,  and  who,  by  virtue  of  these 
blessings,  had  been  cut  off  from  the  power  of  Satan 
and  the  kingdom  of  darkness.  And  all  this  had  been 
and  ever  is  to  be  effected  "  by  faith  that  is  in  Christ." 
Christ's  saints  or  separated  people  are  sanctified  by 
faith  in  Christ.  Not  that  the  bare  exercise  of  a  faculty 
or  feeling  called  faith  will  exercise  a  sanctifying  in- 
fluence upon  human  nature, — this  would  be  simply  to 
make  man  his  own  sanctifier,  and  to  usurp  for  his  own 
poor  weak  wretched  self  the  work  and  power  which 
belong  to  the  Holy  Ghost  alone, — ^but  when  Christ  is 
realised  as  including  all  the  parts  of  God's  final  revela- 
tion, when  no  partial  or  limited  view  is  taken  of  Christ's 
work  as  if  it  were  limited  to  the  Incarnation  alone,  or 
the  Atonement  alone,  or  the  Resurrection  alone,  but 
when  the  diverse  and  various  parts  and  laws  of 
His  revelation  are  recognised  as  divinely  taught,  and 
therefore  as  tremendously  important  for  the  soul's 
health.  When  the  Holy  Ghost  and  His  mission,  and 
good  works  and  their  absolute  necessity,  and  Christ's 
sacraments  and  His  other  appointed  means  of  grace  are 
duly  honoured  and  reverently  received,  then  indeed,  and 


62  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


then  alone,  faith  is  truly  exercised  in  Christ,  and  men 
are  not  merely  separated  b}'  an  external  consecration, 
such  as  the  Jews  received  at  circumcision,  and  which 
qualified  even  that  hard-hearted  and  stubborn  people 
to  be  called  a  nation  of  saints ;  but  when  Christ  is  thus 
truly  and  fully  received  by  faith  into  the  hearts  and 
affections  of  His  people,  they  walk  worthy  of  the  high 
vocation  called  upon  them.  Many  a  mistaken  exposi- 
tion has  been  offered  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  and  many 
an  effort  has  been  made  to  explain  away  the  plainest 
statements,  because  men  will  apply  a  false  meaning  to 
the  word  saints  which  Ananias  here  uses.  If  we  first 
determine  that  the  word  saint  could  only  have  been 
applied  to  a  truly  converted  man,  clothed  in  the  robe  of 
Christ's  imputed  righteousness,  elected  from  eternity  to 
everlasting  salvation,  and  who  could  never  finally  fall 
away,  and  then  find  the  term  so  defined  applied,  for 
instance,  to  the  Corinthian  Church  as  a  whole,  we  shall 
come  to  some  strange  results.  If  truly  converted  men, 
true  saints  of  Christ,  could  be  guilty  of  sins  such  as 
were  not  named  amongst  the  heathen,  or  could  be 
drunk  at  the  Lord's  Table,  or  could  cherish  all  that  long 
and  dreary  catalogue  of  spiritual  crimes  enumerated 
in  the  Corinthian  Epistles,  then  indeed  the  words  true 
conversion  have  completely  changed  their  meaning, 
and  Christianity,  instead  of  being  the  principle  and 
fountain  of  a  regenerate  life,  becomes  a  cloak  under 
which  all  kinds  of  maliciousness  and  evil-doing  may 
have  free  course  and  be  glorified. 

Our  Lord  protests  beforehand  unto  St.  Paul  against 
such  a  perversion  of  the  gospel  of  free  grace  with 
which  His  great  Apostle  had  all  his  life  to  struggle. 
Antinomianism  is  as  old  as  St.  Paul's  doctrine — so 
very  much  misunderstood — of  justification.     Our  Lord 


ix.  lo,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  63 


raises  His  voice  against  it  in  His  earliest  commission 
to  St.  Paul  when  He  sends  him  to  the  Gentiles  "  to 
turn  them  from  darkness  to  light,"  that  is,  from  moral 
and  spiritual  darkness  to  moral  and  spiritual  light,  and 
"from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God."  And  the  New 
Testament  often  enough  tells  us  what  is  meant  by 
"  the  power  of  Satan."  It  was  not  any  mere  system 
of  false  beliefs  alone,  but  it  was  a  wicked,  impure 
belief  joined  and  leading  to  a  wicked  and  impure 
practice ;  and  St.  Paul's  work  was  to  turn  the  Gentiles 
from  a  wicked  faith,  combined  with  a  still  more  wicked 
practice,  to  a  life  sanctified  and  purified  and  renewed 
after  the  image  of  a  living  Christ.^ 

HI.  Finally,  we  notice  in  this  conversation,  and  that 
only  very  briefly,  the  title  given  by  our  Lord  to  St.  Paul, 
which  became  the  favourite  designation  of  the  Apostle  of 
the  Gentiles,  especially  among  the  Western  doctors  of  the 
ancient  Church.  "Go  thy  way,"  says  Christ  to  Ananias, 
"  for  he  is  a  chosen  vessel  unto  Me,"  or,  as  the  Revisers 
put  it  in  the  margin,  translating  still  more  literally  from 
the  original,   "  for  he  is  a  vessel  of  election."     "  Vas 

'  I  am  referring  in  this  passage  to  what  we  may  designate  the 
Antinomian  method  of  expounding  First  Corinthians  still  current  in 
many  circles.  They  first  determine  that  the  word  saint  is  always  used 
by  St.  Paul  to  express  a  truly  converted  man,  one,  therefore,  in  their 
idea  who  has  no  need  to  ask  pardon  for  sin  and  who  never  can  finally 
fall  away.  They  then  find  this  term  "  saints  "  applied  to  the  Corinthian 
Church,  which  must  therefore  have  been  composed  of  truly  converted 
men  alone,  else,  they  think,  St.  Paul  would  not  have  called  them 
saints.  But  then  a  difficulty  arises,  How  about  the  gross  sins  prevalent 
in  that  Church  ?  Their  peculiar  system  of  theology,  however,  rapidly 
solves  this  perplexing  point.  All  the  sins  of  believers,  past,  present 
or  to  come,  have  been  forgiven  long  before  they  were  bom,  therefore 
these  gross  immoralities  at  Corinth  were  mere  believer's  slips,  as  I  have 
heard  them  called.  A  believer  guilty  of  them  should  be  sorry  for  them 
as  causing  scanda  to  the  world,  but  as  far  as  final  salvation  is  concerned 
he  has  nothing  to  do  with  them  save  to  assure  himself  of  their  pardon 


64  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Electionis  "  is  the  usual  title  for  St.  Paul  in  St.  Jerome's 
letters,  as  also  in  St.  Chrysostom's  homilies,  and  it 
expresses  a  side  of  his  character  which  is  prominent 
throughout  his  writings.  Saul's  early  life  was  so 
alienated  from  Christ,  his  career  had  been  so  completely 
hostile  to  the  gospel,  his  conversion  had  been  so  entirely 
God's  work  and  God's  work  alone,  that  he  ever  felt 
and  ever  insisted  more  than  the  other  New  Testament 
writers  on  God's  electing  love.  If  we  compare  the 
writings  of  St.  John  with  those  of  St.  Paul,  we  shall  see 
how  naturally  and  completely  they  reflect  in  their  tone 
the  history  of  their  lives.  St.  John's  life  was  one  long 
continuous  steady  growth  in  Divine  knowledge.  There 
were  no  great  gaps  or  breaks  in  that  life,  and  so  we 
find  that  his  writings  do  not  ignore  God's  electing  love 
and  preventing  grace  as  the  source  of  everything  good 
in  man.  "We  love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us" 
are  words  which  show  that  St.  John's  gospel  was  at 
bottom  the  same  as  St.  Paul's.  But  St.  John's  favourite 
topic  is  the  Incarnation  and  its  importance,  and  its 
results  in  purity  of  heart  and  in  a  sweet  consciousness 

wrought  out  by  our  Lord  on  the  cross.  Abundant  instances  of  this 
method  of  exposition  will  be  found  in  the  works  of  Dr.  Williams,  the 
Nonconformist  of  the  time  of  William  III.,  founder  of  the  well-known 
library  in  Grafton  Street,  London.  He  had  a  great  controversy  with 
the  Antinomians  of  the  day,  who  represented  themselves  as  the  true 
champions  of  the  doctrines  of  grace.  They  were  simply  teaching  the 
ancient  Gnostic  heresy  that  the  soul  can  be  in  communion  with  God 
while  the  body  is  all  the  time  wallowing  in  the  depths  of  sin.  Precisely 
the  same  views  are  now  commonly  taught  and  called  as  in  Williams's 
day,  two  hundred  years  ago,  ' '  the  Gospel. "  If,  however,  we  recognise 
the  New  Testament  use  of  the  word  saints  as  meaning  "dedicated  to 
God,  consecrated  to  His  service,"  the  meaning  of  the  First  Corinthians 
and  of  the  words  of  Ananias  is  quite  clear  and  plain,  and  no  such 
immoral  results  follow  as  the  Antinomian  exegesis  implies,  but  rather 
the  saintly  character  of  baptized  Christians  becomes  the  foundation  of 
the  most  practical  e.\hortations  to  holiness  of  life. 


ix.  lo,  n.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  6$ 

of  the  Divine  Spirit.  St.  Paul's  life,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  no  continuous  upgrowth  from  youth's  earliest 
day  to  life's  latest  eventide.  There  was  a  great  gap,  a 
tremendous  yawning  chasm  separating  the  one  portion 
from  the  other,  and  Paul  never  could  forget  that  it  was 
God's  choice  alone  which  turned  the  persecuting  Rabbi 
into  the  Christian  Apostle.  His  Epistles  to  the 
Romans,  Ephesians,  and  Galatiang  amply  testify  to 
the  effects  of  this  doctrine  upon  his  whole  soul,  and 
show  that  the  expositors  of  the  early  Church  displayed 
a  true  instinct  and  gauged  his  character  aright  when 
they  designated  him  by  this  title,  "  Vas  Electionis." 
And  yet  the  Apostle  proved  his  Divine  inspiration,  for 
he  held  and  taught  this  truth  in  no  one-sided  manner. 
He  combined  the  doctrine  of  electing  love  with  that  of 
intense  human  free  will  and  awful  personal  responsibility. 
He  made  no  effort  intellectually  to  reconcile  the  two 
opposite  sides  of  truth,  but,  wiser  than  many  who  followed 
him,  he  accepted  both  and  found  in  them  both,  matter 
for  practical  guidance.  God's  eternal  and  electing  love 
made  him  humble  ;  man's  free  will  and  responsibility 
made  him  awfully  in  earnest.  Two  passages,  drawn 
from  different  Epistles,  sufficiently  explain  St.  Paul's 
view.  Gal.  i.  15,  16 — "When  it  was  the  good  pleasure 
of  God,  who  separated  me,  even  from  my  mother's  womb, 
and  called  me  through  His  grace,  to  reveal  His  Son  in 
me " — are  words  which  show  how  entirely  St.  Paul 
viewed  himself  as  a  "  Vas  Electionis."  i  Cor.  ix.  27 — 
"  I  buffet  my  body,  and  bring  it  into  bondage,  lest  by 
any  means,  after  that  I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself 
should  be  rejected  " — are  words  showing  how  real  and 
profound  was  his  fear  of  final  defeat  and  ruin,  how 
convinced  he  was  that  no  display  of  Divine  grace  or 
love  assured  him  of  his  own  final  perseverance.     It  is 

VOL.    II.  K 


66  THE  ACTS    OF   THE  APOSTLES. 

well  that  people  should  notice  this  difference  between 
the  tone  and  spiritual  experience  of  a  Paul  and  of  a 
John.  At  times  sincere  Christians  have  been  troubled 
because  their  spiritual  experience  and  feelings  have 
been  very  different  from  St.  Paul's.  They  have  limited 
to  a  large  extent  their  own  reading  of  Scripture  to  his 
writings,  and  have  not  noticed  the  clear  distinction 
which  Scripture  makes  between  the  tone  and  ideas  of 
St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter,  St.  James  and  St.  John;  and  why  ? 
Just  to  meet  this  very  tendency,  and  to  show  us  that 
spiritual  experiences,  feelings,  temptations,  must  vary 
with  the  varying  circumstances  of  each  individual. 
No  saintly  life  can  be  taken  as  a  universal '  model 
or  standard ;  and,  above  all,  the  conversion  of  a 
persecutor  and  blasphemer  like  St.  Paul  is  not  to  be 
taken  as  the  normal  type  of  God's  dealings  with  men, 
who  grow  up,  like  St.  John  or  like  Timothy,  in  the 
paths  of  Divine  love  from  their  earliest  childhood.^ 

There  is  one  common  feature,  however,  which  can 
be  traced  in  all  religious  lives,  whether  sternly  and  even 
violently  ordered  like  Saul's,  or  gently  guided  like 
St.  John's.  They  all  agree  in  presenting  one  feature 
when  the  fresh  breath  of  the  Spirit  blows  upon  them 
and  the  deeper  sense  of  Hfe's  importance  first  dawns 
upon  the  vision,  and  that  is,  they  are  all  marked  by 
prayer.  Of  every  sincere  seeker  the  Divine  watcher, 
ever  on  the  outlook  for  the  signs  of  spiritual  life,  repeats 


'  It  should  be  carefully  noted  that  the  great  end  of  St.  Paul's  election 
is  set  forth  by  our  Lord  when  speaking  to  Ananias  as  "to  bear  My 
name  before  the  Gentiles  and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Israel." 
From  the  very  outset  of  Paul's  Christian  career  his  work  as  the  Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles  is  thus  clearly  revealed  through  Ananias.  I  say  through 
Ananias,  and  not  to  him  ;  for  I  suppose  that  Ananias  could  not  himself 
have  realised  the  real  force  .ind  meaning  of  the  Divine  words. 


ix.  10,  II.]  THE  NEW  CONVERT.  67 

"  Behold,  he  prayeth."  Saul,  we  may  be  sure,  had 
never  forgotten  his  duty  in  the  matter  of  the  prescribed 
round  of  Jewish  devotions ;  but  now  for  the  first  time 
he  rose  above  the  level  of  mere  mechanical  saying  of 
prayer  to  spiritual  communion  with  God.  in  Christ; 
now  for  the  first  time  he  prayed  a  Christian  prayer, 
through  Christ  and  to  Christ;  now  for  the  first  time 
perhaps  he  learned  one  secret  of  the  spiritual  life,  which 
is  this,  that  prayer  is  something  wider  and  nobler  than 
mere  asking.  Prayer  is  communion  of  the  spirit  with 
God  reconciled  in  Christ  Jesus.  That  communion  is 
often  deepest  and  most  comforting  when  enjoyed  in 
simple  silence.  Saul,  the  converted  persecutor,  could 
know  but  little  yet  of  what  to  ask  from  Christ.  But 
in  the  revelations  made  in  those  hours  of  darkness 
and  penitence  and  silence,  there  were  vouchsafed  to 
him  renewed  proofs  of  the  truths  already  gained,  and 
of  the  awful  trials  which  those  truths,  realised  and  acted 
out,  would  demand  from  him,  "  I  will  show  him  what 
things  he  must  suffer  for  My  sake." 


CHAPTER   IV. 

SAUL   AND  SINAI. 

"  Saul  was  certain  days  with  the  disciples  which  were  at  Damascus. 
And  straightway  in  the  synagogues  he  proclaimed  Jesus,  that  He  is  the 
Son  of  God." — Acts  ix.  19,  20. 

WE  have  bestowed  a  great  deal  of  attention  upon 
the  incidents  at  Damascus,  because  the  con- 
version of  Saul  of  Tarsus  is  more  closely  connected 
with  the  truth  and  authenticity  of  Christianity  than  any 
other  event  save  those  immediately  connected  with  the 
life  and  ministry  of  our  Lord  Himself.  We  shall, 
however,  in  this  chapter,  endeavour  to  discuss  the 
remaining  circumstances  of  it  which  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  brings  under  our  notice. 

I.  We  are  told  in  verse  17  of  the  visit  of  Ananias  to 
Saul.  "Ananias  departed,  and  entered  into  the  house; 
and  laying  his  hands  on  him  said,  Brother  Saul,  the  Lord, 
even  Jesus,  who  appeared  unto  thee  in  the  way  which 
thou  earnest,  hath  sent  me,  that  thou  mayest  receive 
thy  sight,  and  be  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost."  This 
conversation  with  Ananias  is  largely  expanded  by 
St.  Paul  himself  in  the  account  which  he  gives  us  in 
Acts  xxii.,  while  in  his  speech  to  Agrippa  in  the  twenty- 
sixth  chapter  he  entirely  omits  all  mention  of  Ananias, 
and  seems  to  introduce  our  Lord  as  the  only  person 
who  spoke  to  him,  and  yet  there  is  no  real  inconsistency* 

68 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  69 

St.  Paul,  in  fact,  in  the  latter  address  is  intent  on  setting 
vividly  before  Agrippa  the  sum  total  of  the  revelations 
made  by  Christ.  He  ignores,  therefore,  every  secondary 
agent.  Ananias  was  Christ's  messenger.  His  words 
were  merely  those  which  Christ  put  into  his  mouth. 
St.  Paul  goes,  therefore,  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  and 
attributes  everything,  whether  uttered  by  our  Lord  or 
by  Ananias,  to  the  former  alone,  who  was,  indeed,  the 
great  Inspirer  of  every  expression,  the  true  Director  of 
every  minutest  portion  of  this  important  transaction. 

The  ninth  chapter,  on  the  other  hand,  breaks  the  story 
up  into  its  component  parts,  and  shows  us  the  various 
actors  in  the  scene.  We  see  the  Lord  Jesus  consciously 
presiding  over  all,  revealing  Himself  now  to  this  person 
and  again  to  that  person.  We  get  a  glimpse  for  a  moment 
behind  the  veil  which  Divine  Providence  throws  around 
His  doings  and  the  doings  of  the  children  of  men.  We 
see  Christ  revealing  Himself  now  to  Saul  and  then  to 
Ananias,  informing  the  latter  of  the  revelations  made  to 
the  former ;  just  as  He  subsequently  revealed  Himself 
almost  simultaneously  to  Cornelius  at  Caesarea  and  to 
Simon  Peter  at  Joppa,  preparing  the  one  for  the  other. 
The  Lord  thus  hints  at  an  explanation  of  those  simul- 
taneous cravings,  aspirations,  and  spiritual  desires 
which  we  often  find  unaccountably  arising  amid  far 
distant  lands  and  in  widely  separated  hearts.  The 
feelings  may  seem  but  vague  aspirations  and  their 
coincidence  a  mere  chance  one,  but  the  typical  cases 
of  Saul  and  Ananias,  or  of  Cornelius  and  St.  Peter, 
teach  the  believer  to  see  in  them  the  direct  action  and 
government  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  turning  the 
hearts  of  the  fathers  to  the  children  and  of  the  dis- 
obedient to  the  wisdom  of  the  just.  Surely  we  have 
an   instance  of  such   simultaneous  operations  of  the 


70  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Divine  Spirit,  and  that  on  the  largest  scale,  in  the 
cravings  of  the  world  after  a  Saviour  at  the  age  and 
time  when  our  Lord  came !  Virgil  was  then  preaching 
in  tones  so  Christian 'concerning  the  coming  Saviour 
whom  the  world  was  expecting,  that  the  great  Italian 
poet  Dante  exempts  him  from  hell  on  account  of  his  dim 
but  real  faith.  The  Wise  Men  were  then  seeking  Christ 
from  a  far  country ;  Caiaphas  was  prophesying  con- 
cerning a  man  who  was  to  die  for  God's  people.  Man- 
kind, all  the  world  over,  was  unconsciously  longing  with 
a  divinely  inspired  desire  for  that  very  salvation  which 
God  was  then  revealing ;  just  as  upon  the  narrower 
stage  of  Damascus  or  Caesarea  Jesus  Christ  inspired 
Saul  and  Cornelius  with  a  Divine  want  and  prepared 
Ananias  and  Peter  to  satisfy  it.  John  Keble  in  his 
poem  for  Easter  Monday  has  well  seized  and  illustrated 
this  point,  so  full  of  comfort  and  edification,  turning 
it  into  a  practical  direction  for  the  life  of  the  human 
spirit : — 

"  Even  so  the  course  of  prayer  who  knows  ? 
It  springs  in  silence  where  it  will, 
Springs  out  of  sight,  and  flows 
At  first  a  lonely  rill. 

"Unheard  by  all  but  angel  ears. 
The  good  Cornelius  knelt  alone, 
Nor  dreamed  his  prayers  and  tears 
Could  help  a  world  undone. 

"The  while  upon  liis  terraced  roof, 
The  loved  apostle  to  the  Lord, 
In  silent  thought  aloof. 

For  heavenly  vision  soared. 

"  The  saint  beside  the  ocean  prayed, 
The  soldier  in  his  chosen  bower, 
Where  all  his  eye  surveyed 
Seemed  sacred  in  that  hour. 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  ^\ 

"To  each  unknown  his  brother's  prayer> 
Yet  brethren  true  in  dearest  love 
Were  they — and  now  they  share 
Fraternal  joys  above." 

Ananias,  guided  by  Divine  Providence,  enters  into 
Saul's  presence,  states  his  mission,  lays  his  hands  upon 
him  and  restores  him  to  sight.  Ananias  is  careful, 
however,  to  disclaim  all  merit  so  far  as  he  is  himself 
concerned  in  the  matter  of  this  miracle.  His  language 
is  exactly  the  same  in  tone  as  that  of  the  apostles 
Peter  ~  and  John  when  they  had  healed  the  impotent 
man  :  "  Why  marvel  ye  at  this  man  ?  or  why  fasten 
ye  your  eyes  on  us,  as  though  by  our  own  power  or 
godliness  we  had  made  him  to  walk  ?  ...  By  faith  in 
His  name  hath  His  name  made  this  man  strong,"  were 
their  words  to  the  people.  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  of  Nazareth,  walk,"  was  their  command  to  the 
man  himself.  And  so  in  the  case  of  Ananias,  he  attri- 
butes the  healing  power  to  Jesus  Christ  alone.  "  The 
Lord  Jesus,  who  appeared  unto  thee,  .  .  .  hath  sent  me, 
that  thou  mayest  receive  thy  sight."  The  theology  and 
faith  of  the  Church  at  Damascus  were  exactly  the  same 
as  those  of  the  Apostles  and  Church  at  Jerusalem. 
And  what  a  confirmation  of  Saul's  own  faith  must  this 
miracle  have  been  !  It  was  then  no  passing  vision,  no 
fancy  of  a  heated  imagination  which  he  had  experienced ; 
but  he  had  the  actual  proof  in  his  own  person  of  their 
objective  reality,  a  demonstration  that  the  power  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  ordered  all  things,  both  in  heaven 
and  earth,  healing  the  bodily  as  it  could  illuminate  the 
spiritual  eye. 

II.  Ananias  restored  Saul's  sight.  According  to  the 
ninth  of  Acts  his  mission  was  limited  to  this  one 
point ;  but,  according  to  St.  Paul's  own  account  in  the 


72  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

twenty-second  chapter,  he  made  a  much  longer  com- 
munication to  the  future  Apostle :  "  The  God  of  our 
fathers  hath  appointed  thee  to  know  His  will,  and  to 
see  the  Righteous  One,  and  to  hear  a  voice  from  His 
mouth.  For  thou  shalt  be  a  witness  for  Him  unto  all 
men  of  what  thou  hast  seen  and  heard.  And  now 
why  tarriest  thou  ?  Arise,  and  be  baptized,  and  wash 
away  thy  sins,  calling  on  His  name."  Ananias  pre- 
dicted to  Saul  his  future  mission,  his  apostleship  to  all 
nations,  and  the  fact  that  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles 
would  find  the  root  and  sustenance  of  his  work  in  the 
force  of  personal  conviction  with  which  his  miraculous 
conversion  had  endowed  him.  Personal  knowledge, 
individual  acquaintance  with  the  things  of  the  eternal 
world  was  then,  as  it  is  still,  the  first  condition  ot 
successful  work  for  Jesus  Christ.  There  may  be  intel- 
lectual power,  intense  energy,  transcendent  eloquence, 
consummate  ability;  but  in  the  spiritual  order  these 
things  avail  nothing  till  there  be  joined  thereto  that 
sense  of  heavenly  force  and  reality  which  a  personal 
knowledge  of  the  things  unseen  imparts.  Then  heart 
answers  to  heart,  and  the  great  depths  of  man's  nature 
respond  and  open  themselves  to  the  voice  and  teaching 
of  one  who  speaks  as  St.  Paul  did  of  what  "he  had 
seen  and  heard." 

There  are  two  points  in  this  address  of  Ananias  as 
reported  by  St.  Paul  himself  to  which  we  would  direct 
special  attention.  Ananias  baptized  Saul,  and  used 
very  decided  language  on  the  subject,  language  from 
which  some  would  now  shrink.  These  two  points 
embody  important  teaching.  Ananias  baptized  Saul 
though  Christ  had  personally  called  him.  This  shows 
the  importance  which  the  Holy  Scriptures  attach  to 
baptism,  and  shows  us  something  too  of  the  nature  of 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  73 

Holy  Scripture  itself.  St.  Luke  wrote  the  Acts  as  a 
kind  of  continuation  of  his  Gospel,  to  give  an  account 
to  Theophilus  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  Christianity 
down  to  his  own  time.  St.  Luke  in  doing  so  tells  us 
of  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist,  but  he  does  not 
say  one  word  in  his  Gospel  about  the  appointment  of 
baptism.  He  does  not  record  the  baptismal  commis- 
sion, for  which  we  must  turn  to  St.  Matthew  xxviii.  19, 
or  to  St.  Mark  xvi.  16.  Yet  St.  Luke  is  careful  to 
report  the  baptism  of  the  three  thousand  on  the  Day 
of  Pentecost,  of  the  Samaritans,  of  the  eunuch,  and 
now  of  St.  Paul,  as  afterwards  of  Cornelius,  of  Lydia, 
of  the  Philippian  jailor,  and  of  the  Ephesian  followers 
of  John  the  Baptist.  He  records  the  universality  of 
Christian  baptism,  and  thus  proves  its  obligation ;  but 
he  does  not  give  us  a  hint  of  the  origin  of  this  sacra- 
ment, nor  does  he  trace  it  back  to  any  word  or  command 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  evidently  took  all  these 
things  as  quite  well  known  and  understood,  and  merely 
describes  the  observance  of  a  sacrament  which  needed 
no  explanation  on  his  part.  The  writings  of  St.  Luke 
were  intended  to  instruct  Theophilus  in  the  facts 
concerning  our  Lord's  life  and  the  labours  of  certain 
leading  individuals  among  His  earliest  followers ;  but 
they  make  no  pretence,  nor  do  the  other  Gospels  make 
any  pretence,  of  being  an  exhaustive  history  of  our 
Lord's  ministry  or  of  the  practice  of  the  earliest  Church  ; 
and  their  silence  does  not  necessarily  prove  that 
much  was  not  known  and  practised  in  the  early  Church 
about  which  they  have  no  occasion  to  speak.^     The 

'  Archbishop  Whately  used  to  make  an  important  distinction  between 
things  ««/2-Scriptural  and  things  ?<M-Scriptural.  Things  ff«//-ScripturaI 
cannot  be  tolerated  by  the  Cliurch,  because  they  contradict  the  Word  of 
God.     Things  ww-Scriptural,  that  is,  things  about  which  Scripture  is 


74  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

words  of  Ananias  and  the  obedience  of  Saul  show 
us  the  importance  which  the  Holy  Spirit  attached  to 
this  sacrament  of  baptism.  Here  was  a  man  to  whom 
Christ  Himself  had  personally  appeared,  whom  Christ 
had  personally  called,  and  to  whom  He  had  made  long- 
continued  revelations  of  His  will.  Yet  He  instructed 
him  by  the  mouth  of  Ananias  to  receive  the  sacrament 
of  baptism.  Surely  if  any  man  was  ever  exempted 
from  submission  to  what  some  would  esteem  the  out- 
ward ordinance,  it  was  this  penitent  and  privileged 
convert !  But  no :  to  him  the  words  of  God's  mes- 
senger are  the  same  as  to  the  humblest  sinner,  "Arise, 
and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away  thy  sins."  I  have 
known  of  truly  good  men  who  showed  their  want  of 
spiritual  humility,  or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  of 
spiritual  thought  and  reflection,  in  this  direction.  I 
have  known  of  persons  aroused  from  religious  torpor 
and  death  by  powerful  though  one-sided  teaching. 
God  has  blessed  such  teaching  to  the  awakening  in 
them  of  the  first  elements  of  spiritual  life,  and  then 
they  have  stopped  short.  They  were  called,  as  Saul 
was,  in  an  unbaptized  state.  They  had  never  pre- 
viously received  the  sacrament  of  regeneration  accord- 
ing to  Christ's  appointment,  and  when  Christ  aroused 
them  they  thought  this  primal  blessing  quite  suffi- 
cient, and  judged  it  unnecessary  to  obey  the  full 
commands  of  Christ  and  be  united  by  baptism  to  His 

silent  and  for  which  no  direct  warrant  can  be  produced,  may  be  right 
or  wrong,  useful  or  vicious.  Sunday  schools,  for  instance,  are  in  this 
sense  unscriptural.  The  Scriptures  are  silent  about  them,  and  if  direct 
warrant  with  chapter  and  verse  be  required  for  them,  none  such  can 
be  produced.  Hooker,  in  his  Third  Book,  ch.  v.-viii.,  has  a  powerful 
argument  upon  this  subject  as  against  the  ultra-reformers  or  Puritans 
of  his  day,  who  would  have  tied  the  Church  within  much  tighter  bonds 
than  ever  Judaism  submitted  to. 


ix  19,20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  75 

Body  the  Church.  They  judged,  in  fact,  that  the  bless- 
ing of  conversion  absolved  them  from  the  sacrament 
of  responsibihty  ;  but  such  was  not  the  view  of  the 
primitive  Church.  The  blessing  of  conversion  as  in 
St.  Paul's  case,  the  visible  and  audible  descent  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  as  in  the  case  of  Cornelius,  hindered  not 
the  importance  nor  dispensed  with  the  necessity  of  the 
sacrament  of  baptism,  which  was  the  door  of  admission 
to  the  Divine  society  and  to  a  higher  level  in  the  Divine 
life  than  any  hitherto  attained.  Persons  who  act  as 
those  misguided  individuals  of  whom  we  have  spoken 
stop  short  at  the  first  principles  of  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  and  they  attain  to  none  of  its  heights,  they  sound 
none  of  its  depths,  because  they  bend  not  their  wills, 
and  learn  not  the  sweetness  and  the  power  involved 
in  spiritual  humiliation  and  in  lowly  self-denying 
obedience  taught  by  the  Master  Himself  when  He  said, 
"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit :  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven."  ^ 

The  language,  again,  of  Ananias  about  baptism  sounds 
strange  in  some  ears,  and  yet  the  experience  of  mis- 

'  I  have  known  cases  where  baptism  was  rejected  avowedly  on  these 
grounds.  This  is  of  course  a  natural  result  of  the  pushing  individualism 
in  religion  to  an  extreme,  and  is  often  found  among  what  we  may  call 
extreme  Protestants.  It  naturally  results  from  two  errors.  First  of  all, 
from  a  rejection  of  the  article  of  the  Apostles'  Cieed,  "  I  believe  in  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church."  Such  men  reject  the  doctrine  of  a  Church  as 
a  great  fundamental  article  of  the  Creed,  one  of  the  necessary  articles  of 
the  Christian  faith,  and  therefore  they  reject  baptism  which  is  the  door 
of  entrance  into  the  Divine  society.  And,  secondly,  they  reject  the  true 
definition  and  idea  of  a  sacrament.  They  view  baptism,  for  instance, 
as  the  expression  merely  of  a  faith  already  received,  and  as  nothing  more. 
If,  then,  they  express  this  faith  sufficiently  by  their  life  and  actions, 
baptism  seems  to  them  an  empty  and  vain  ceremony.  But  surely  this 
was  not  St.  Paul's  view,  either  when  he  received  baptism  at  the  hands 
of  Ananias,  or  when  he  wrote  in  the  sixth  of  Romans  "  We  were  buried 
therefore  with  Him  through  baptism  into  death. " 


76  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

sionaries  is  a  sufficient  explanation  of  it.  V/hat  is  that 
language?  "Arise,  and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away 
thy  sins."  These  words  sound  startling  to  one  accus- 
tomed to  identify  the  washing  away  of  sin  with  the 
exercise  of  faith,  and  yet  there  they  stand,  and  no 
method  of  exegesis  will  avail  to  make  them  say  any- 
thing else  than  this,  that  baptism  was  for  Saul  the 
washing  away  of  sin,  so  that  if  he  did  not  accept 
baptism  his  sins  would  not  have  been  washed  away. 
The  experience,  however,  of  those  who  labour  in  the 
mission  field  explains  the  whole  difficulty.  Baptism 
is  the  act  of  open  confession  and  acknowledgment  of 
Christ.  St.  Paul  himself  teaches  the  absolute  import- 
ance of  this  confession  :  "  With  the  heart  man  believeth 
unto  righteousness ;  with  the  mouth  confession  is  made 
unto  salvation."^  Pagan  converts  are  even  still  abund- 
antly found  who  are  willing  to  accept  the  pure  morality 
and  the  sublime  teaching  of  Christianity,  who  are 
willing  to  believe  and  see  in  Jesus  Christ  the  supreme 
revelation  of  God  made  to  the  human  race,  but  who 
are  not  willing  to  incur  loss  and  persecution  and  trial 
for  His  sake  by  the  reception  of  Christian  baptism  and 
a  public  confession  of  their  faith.  They  may  believe 
with  the  heart  in  the  revelation  of  righteousness  and 
may  lead  moral  lives  in  consequence,  but  they  are 
not  willing  to  make  public  confession  leading  them 
into  a  state  of  salvation.  They  are,  in  fact,  in  the 
position  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  as  he  prayed  in  the  house 
of  Judas,  but  they  will  go  no  farther.  They  will  not 
act  as  he  did,  they  will  not  take  the  decisive  step, 
they  will  not  arise  and  be  baptized  and  wash  away 
their  sins,  calling  on  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ.  And 
if  Saul  of  Tarsus  had  been  like  them  and  had  acted 

'  Romans  x.  lo. 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  77 

as  they  do,  he  might  have  received  the  vision  and 
have  been  convinced  of  the  truth  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
of  His  mission,  but  yet  his  moral  cowardice  would 
have  spoilt  the  whole,  and  Saul  would  have  remained 
in  his  sins,  unpardoned,  unaccepted,  reprobate  from 
Christ,  because  he  remained  unbaptized.  Christianity, 
in  fact,  is  a  covenant,  and  forgiveness  of  sins  is  one  of 
the  blessings  attached  to  this  covenant.  Until  men 
perform  its  conditions  and  actually  enter  into  the 
covenant  the  blessings  of  the  covenant  are  not  granted. 
Baptism  is  the  door  of  entry  into  the  covenant  of  grace, 
and  till  men  humbly  enter  within  the  door  they  do 
not  exercise  true  faith.  They  may  believe  intellectually 
in  the  truth  and  reality  of  Christianity,  but,  till  they 
take  the  decisive  step  and  obey  Christ's  law,  they  do 
not  possess  that  true  faith  of  the  heart  which  alone 
enables  them,  like  Saul  of  Tarsus,  to  obey  Christ  and 
therefore  enter  into  peace. 

III.  T!ie  next  step  taken  by  the  Apostle  is  equally 
plainly  stated  :  "  Straightway  in  the  synagogues  he  pro- 
claimed Jesus,  that  He  is  the  Son  of  God."  But,  though 
the  words  of  the  Acts  are  plain  enough,  it  is  not  so 
easy  to  reconcile  them  with  St.  Paul's  own  account, 
as  given  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  (i.  15,  16,  17), 
where  he  states,  "  When  it  was  the  good  pleasure  of 
God  to  reveal  His  Son  in  me,  immediately  I  conferred 
not  with  flesh  and  blood,  but  I  went  away  into  Arabia, 
and  again  I  returned  to  Damascus."  In  the  ninth 
chapter  of  the  Acts  we  find  the  statement  made  that 
immediately  after  his  baptism  he  preached  Christ  in 
the  synagogues  of  Damascus,  while  in  his  own  bio- 
graphical narrative  he  tells  us  that  immediately  after  his 
baptism  he  went  away  into  Arabia.  Is  there  any  way 
in  which  we  can  reconcile  them  ?     We  think  so,  and 


78  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

that  a  very  simple  one.  Let  us  first  reflect  upon  the 
story  as  told  in  the  Acts.  St.  Luke  is  giving  a  rapid 
history,  a  survey  of  St.  Paul's  life  of  public  activity. 
He  is  not  telling  the  story  of  his  inner  spiritual  experi- 
ences, his  conflicts,  temptations,  trials,  revelations,  as 
St.  Paul  himself  set  them  forth.  He  knew  not  of 
them,  in  fact.  St.  Luke  knew  merely  the  exterior 
public  life  of  which  man  had  cognisance.  He  knew 
nothing,  or  but  little,  of  the  interior  life  of  the  Apostle, 
known  only  to  himself  and  to  God.  St.  Luke  there- 
fore tells  us  of  his  early  work  at  Damascus.  St.  Paul 
himself  tells  us  of  that  early  work,  but  also  shows  us 
how  he  was  prepared  for  that  work  by  his  retirement 
into  Arabia.  Both  agree  in  the  main  point,  however, 
and  place  the  scene  of  his  earliest  Christian  efforts  in 
the  very  spot,  Damascus,  which  he  had  in  his  human 
prevision  destined  for  himself  as  the  field  of  his 
bitterest  antagonism  to  the  faith  of  the  Crucified. 
This  is  an  important  point.  St.  Luke  wrote  his  his- 
torical narrative  twenty-five  years  or  thereabouts  after 
St.  Paul's  conversion.  He  may  have  often  visited 
Damascus.  Tradition  makes  Antioch,  a  town  of  the 
same  district,  his  birthplace.  St.  Luke  must  have 
had  abundant  opportunities  of  consulting  witnesses 
who  could  tell  the  story  of  those  eventful  days,  and 
could  describe  St.  Paul's  earliest  testimony  to  his  new 
convictions.  But  these  men  only  knew  St.  Paul  as  he 
appeared  in  public.  They  may  have  known  very  little 
of  the  inner  history  of  his  life  as  he  reveals  it  in  his 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  when  vindicating  his  apostolic 
authority  and  mission.^ 

'  St.  Luke's  informants,  twenty-five  years  after  the  events,  would 
naturally  only  remember  the  leading  points,  the  most  striking  events  of 
St.  Paul's  early  Christian  career.     Few  people  realise  how  hard  it  is  to 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  79 


Let  US  now  see  whether  we  cannot  harmonise 
St.  Paul's  autobiographical  narrative  in  the  Epistle 
with  the  Evangelist's  narrative  in  the  Acts  ;  always 
remembering,  however,  that  an  imperfect  knowledge 
is  never  more  completely  felt  than  in  such  cases. 
When  we  try  to  harmonise  an  account  written  from 
the  subjective  side  by  one  individual  with  an  objective 
and  exterior  narrative  written  by  some  one  else,  we 
are  like  a  man  looking  at  a  globe  and  trying  to  take 
it  all  in  at  one  glance.  One  side  must  be  hidden  from 
him ;  and  so  in  this  case,  many  circumstances  are 
necessarily  concealed  from  us  which  would  solve  diffi- 
culties that  now  completely  puzzle  us.  But  let  us  to 
our  task,  in  which  we  have  derived  much  assistance 
from  the  commentary  of  Bishop  Lightfoot  upon  Gala- 
tians.  St.  Paul,  we  are  told  in  ch.  ix.  19,  received 
meat  after  the  visit  of  Ananias  and  was  strengthened. 
St.  Paul  was  never  one  of  those  high-wrought  fanatics 
who  despise  food  and  the  care  of  the  bod3^  There 
was  nothing  of  the  Gnostic  or  the  Manichean  about 
him,  leading  him  to  despise  and  neglect  the  body 
which  the  Lord  has  given  to  be  the  soul's  instrument. 
He  recognised  under  all  circumstances  that  if  the 
human  spirit  is  to  do  its  work,  and  if  God's  glory  is 
to  be  promoted,  the  human  body  must  be  sustained  in 

recall  the  events  of  twenty-five  years  ago  in  anything  like  consecutive 
order.  We  preserve  upon  the  whole  a  lively  and  a  true  impression  ; 
but  till  we  go  and  consult  documents,  diaries,  journals,  etc.,  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  state  the  succession  of  events  in  accurate  order.  I 
was  trying  the  other  day  to  recall  the  events  of  my  own  public  life 
twenty-five  years  ago  anent  the  controversy  which  raged  about  the  dis- 
establishment of  the  Irish  Chui"ch,  into  which  I  plunged  with  the 
vehemence  of  early  manhood,  and  I  failed  to  distinguish  events  which 
must  have  been  separated  by  months  and  even  by  years.  How  much 
more  easily  must  others  have  failed  accurately  to  follow  details  of 
St.  Paul's  life  known  only  to  himself ! 


8o  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

force  and  vigour.  When  he  was  on  board  ship  and 
in  imminent  peril  of  shipwreck  and  death,  and  men 
thought  they  should  be  at  their  prayers,  thinking  of  the 
next  world  alone,  he  took  bread  and  blessed  and  set 
the  crew  and  passengers  alike  the  healthy  example  of 
eating  a  hearty  meal,  and  thus  keeping  his  body  in  due 
preparation  for  whatever  deliverances  the  Lord  might 
work  for  them  ;  and  so,  too,  at  Damascus,  his  spiritual 
joy  and  hallowed  peace  and  deep  gratitude  for  his 
restoration  to  sight  did  not  prevent  him  paying  due 
attention  to  the  wants  of  his  body.  "  He  took  food,  and 
was  strengthened."  And  now  comes  the  first  note  of 
time.  "Then  was  Saul  certain  days  with  the  disciples 
which  were  at  Damascus.  And  straightway  (evdeoo<i) 
he  preached  Christ  in  the  synagogues,  that  He  is  the 
Son  of  God."  The  very  same  expression  is  used  by 
St.  Paul  in  Galatians,  where,  after  speaking  of  his  con- 
version, he  says,  "  Immediately  (eudeo)^)  I  conferred  not 
with  flesh  and  blood,  but  went  away  into  Arabia,  and 
again  returned  unto  Damascus."  Now  my  explanation, 
and  not  mine  alone,  but  that  of  Bishop  Lightfoot,  is 
this.  After  the  new  convert  had  rested  for  a  short 
time  at  Damascus,  he  retired  into  the  Sinaitic  desert, 
where  he  remained  for  several  months,  perhaps  for 
a  whole  year.  During  this  period  he  disappeared 
from  the  sight  and  knowledge  of  men  as  if  the  earth 
had  opened  its  mouth  and  swallowed  him.  Then  he 
returned  to  Damascus  and  preached  with  such  power 
that  the  Jews  formed  a  plot  against  his  life,  enlisting 
the  help  of  the  governor  on  their  side,  so  that  even  the 
gates  were  watched  that  he  might  be  arrested.  He 
escaped  their  hands,  however,  through  the  assistance 
of  his  converts,  and  went  up  to  Jerusalem.^ 

'  Mr.  Lewin,  in  his  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  p.  72,  argues  that  the  governor 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  8i 

But  here  another  difficulty  arises.  The  Acts  tells  us 
that  "when  Saul  was  come  to  Jerusalem,  he  assayed  to 
join  himself  to  the  disciples ;  but  they  were  all  afraid  of 
him,  and  believed  not  that  he  was  a  disciple,"  where- 
upon Barnabas,  fulfilling  his  office  of  mediation,  ex- 
planation, and  consolation,  took  him  and  introduced  him 
to  the  Apostles ;  while  on  the  other  hand  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Galatians  St.  Paul  himself  speaks  of  his  first 
visit  to  the  Jerusalem  Church  thus  :  "  Then  after  three 
years  I  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  visit  Cephas,  and 
tarried  with  him  fifteen  days.  But  other  of  the  Apostles 
saw  I  none,  save  James  the  Lord's  brother."  Now  the 
difficulty  consists  in  this.  First,  how  could  the  disciples 
at  Jerusalem  have  been  suspicious  of  St.  Paul,  if  at  least 
a  year  and  a  half  had  elapsed  since  his  conversion  ?  for 
the  Jewish  method  of  counting  time  would  not  require 
three  whole  years  to  have  elapsed  since  that  event. 
Secondly,  how  could  Barnabas  have  brought  him  to  the 
Apostles  as  the  Acts  states,  if  St.  Paul  himself  says  he 
saw  none  of  them  save  Peter  and  James  ?  As  to  the 
first  difficulty,  we  acknowledge  at  once  that  it  seems  at 
first  sight  a  very  considerable  one,  and  yet  a  little  re- 
flection will  show  that  there  are  many  explanations  of  it. 
If  St.  Paul  kept  quiet,  as  we  believe  he  did,  after  his 
conversion  and  baptism,  and  departed  into  the  solitudes  of 
Arabia,  and  then  upon  his  return  to  Damascus,  perhaps 


or  ethnaich,  as  he  is  called  by  St.  Paul  in  2  Cor.  xi.  32,  was  the 
Jewish  chief  magistrate  of  Damascus,  appointed  to  that  post  by  Aretas, 
King  of  Petra,  who  then  held  Damascus.  The  Jews  were  allowed  by 
the  Romans  to  have  chief  magistrates  of  their  own  wherever  they  lived 
in  large  colonies.  At  Alexandria,  for  instance,  where  they  occupied  a 
large  portion  of  the  city,  the  Jews  were  ruled  by  an  Alaliarch.  Mr. 
Lewln  show's  in  the  same  place  a  picttire  of  the  exact  spot  ili  the  walls 
wheTe  St.  Paul  is  by  tradition  said  to  have  escaped. 

VOL.   II.  6 


82  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

after  a  year's  retirement,  began  his  aggressive  work, 
there  may  not  have  been  time  for  the  Church  at  large 
to  get  knowledge  of  the  facts.  Communication,  again, 
may  have  been  interrupted  because  of  the  contest 
between  Herod  and  Aretas,  in  which  Damascus  played 
no  small  part.  Communication  may  not  have  been 
possible  between  the  two  Churches.^  Then,  again,  the 
persecution  raised  by  Saul  himself  seems  to  have  prac- 
tically extirpated  the  Jerusalem  Church  for  a  time. 
"  They  were  all  scattered  abroad  except  the  Apostles," 
is  the  account  given  of  the  Christian  community  at 
Jerusalem.  The  terror  of  that  persecution  may  have 
lasted  many  a  long  month.  Numbers  of  the  original 
members  may  never  have  ventured  back  again  to  the 
Holy  City.  The  Jerusalem  Church  may  have  been  a 
new  formation  largely  composed  of  new  converts  who 
never  had  heard  of  a  wondrous  circumstance  which  had 
happened  a  year  or  two  before  to  the  high  priest's 
delegate,  which  the  Sanhedrin  would  doubtless  desire 
to  keep  secret.^ 

These  and  many  other  considerations  offer  themselves 
when  we  strive  to  throw  ourselves  back  into  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time  and  help  to  a  solution  of  the  first 
difficulty  which  we  have  indicated.  Human  life  is  such 
a  complex  thing  that  the  strangest  combinations  may 


'  All  thought  about  Saul  and  his  doings  may  just  then  have  been 
swallowed  up  in  the  national  excitement  about  Caligula  and  his  attempt 
to  set  up  his  statue  in  the  Temple.  The  trouble  connected  with  the 
Nazarene  sect  would  seem  to  every  true  Jew  but  a  small  matter  com- 
pared with  the  outrage  to  Jehovah  threatened  by  the  mad  emperor. 
See  more  about  this  in  the  next  chapter. 

^  It  is  expressly  said  in  Acts  ix.  26  that  when  Saul  came  to  Jeru- 
salem he  tried  to  join  himself  to  the  disciples.  They,  knowing  only  of 
his  record  as  a  persecutor,  were  afraid  of  him.  Then  Barnabas  took  him 
and  brought  hira  to  the  apostles. 


ix.  19,  20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  83 

easily  find  place  therein.  In  this  particular  case  we 
are  so  ignorant  of  the  facts,  so  many  hypotheses  offer 
themselves  to  account  for  the  seeming  inconsistencies, 
that  we  hesitate  not  to  identify  the  visit  to  Jerusalem 
mentioned  in  the  Acts  with  that  recorded  by  St.  Paul 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  The  second  difficulty 
to  which  we  have  alluded  is  this,  How  could  Barnabas 
have  brought  him  to  the  Apostles,  if  St.  Paul  himself 
states  that  he  saw  none  of  the  Apostles  save  Peter 
and  James  the  Lord's  brother  ?  We  must  remember, 
however,  that  St.  Luke  and  St.  Paul  wrote  with 
two  distinct  objects.  St.  Paul,  in  the  Galatians, 
wished  to  show  the  independence  of  his  revelations 
as  regards  the  Apostles  of  the  circumcision,  the 
Twelve  technically  so  called.  Of  these  Apostles  he 
saw  not  one,  save  St.  Peter.  St.  Luke  is  giving  a 
broad  external  account  of  the  new  convert's  earliest 
religious  history,  and  he  tells  us  that  on  his  first  visit 
to  the  Holy  City  his  conversion  was  acknowledged  and 
guaranteed  by  the  apostles, — not  the  Twelve  merely, 
but  the  apostles,  that  is,  the  senior  members  of  the 
Christian  community,  embracing  not  merely  the  original 
company  chosen  by  Christ,  but  all  the  senior  members 
of  the  Church,  hke  Barnabas,  James,  and  others  who 
may  have  formed  a  supreme  council  to  guide  the  affairs 
of  the  infant  society.  The  word  apostle,  in  fact,  is 
used  very  variously  in  the  New  Testament ;  sometimes 
in  a  limited  sense  as  confined  to  the  Twelve,  sometimes 
in  a  wider  and  more  general  sense,  embracing  men  like 
Barnabas,  as  in  Acts  xiv.  4,  14;  St.  James,  the  Lord's 
brother,  as  in  i  Cor.  xv.  7  ;  Andronicus  and  Junias,  as 
in  Rom.  xvi.  7,  and  many  others.  It  is  quite  possible, 
then,  that  Barnabas  may  have  brought  Saul  to  the 
Apostolic  council,  and  told  there  the  tale  of  his  conver- 


84  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

sion  though  not  one  of  the  original  Twelve  was  present 
save  St.  Peter.^ 

We  have  now  endeavoured  to  explain  some  of  the 
difficulties  which  a  comparison  of  St.  Paul's  own  auto- 
biographical narrative  with  the  Acts  discloses.  Let  us 
look  again  at  the  retirement  into  Arabia.  This  retire- 
ment seems  to  us  full  of  instruction  and  pregnant  with 
meaning  for  the  hidden  as  well  as  the  -practical  life  of 
the  soul.  St.  Paul  as  soon  as  he  was  baptized  retired 
into  Arabia ;  and  why,  it  may  be  asked,  did  he  retire 
thither  ?  Some  of  the  ancient  expositors,  as  St. 
Chrysostom  and  St.  Jerome,  both  of  whom  wrote 
about  the  same  period,  a.d.  400,  thought  that  St.  Paul 
retired  into  Arabia  in  order  that  he  might  preach  to 
the  Arabians.  St.  Chrysostom,  for  instance,  comments 
thus:  "See  how  fervent  was  his  soul,  he  was  eager 
to  occupy  lands  yet  untilled.  He  forthwith  attacked  a 
barbarous  and  savage  people,  choosing  a  life  of  conflict 
and  of  much  toil."  And  the  explanations  of  Hilary, 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  Theodoret,  and  (Ecumenius,  all 
of  them  ancient  and  acute  expositors,  are  of  exactly  the 
same  character.  Now  this  would  have  been  a  reversal 
of  the  Divine  order  in  one  important  aspect.  The 
power  of  the  keys,  the  office  of  opening  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  to  the  Gentiles  had  been  committed  to  St. 
Peter  by  Jesus  Christ.  He  had  not  as  yet  baptized 
Cornelius,  and  thus  formally  opened  the  door  of  faith 
to  the  Gentiles.  If  St.  Paul  had  preached  to  the 
Arabians,  he  would  have  usurped  St.  Peter's  place  and 
function.     We  beheve,  on  the  other  hand,  that  God  led 

'  See  Bishop  Lightfoot's  dissertation  upon  St.  Paul's  first  visit  to 
Jerusalem,  and  the  use  of  the  term  apostle  in  the  New  Testament  in 
his  CoDuneiUary  on  Galatians,  pp.  91-101.  Cf.  Volume  I.  of  this 
Commentary,  p.  348. 


IX.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  85 

the  converted  persecutor  into  the  deserts  of  Arabia 
for  very  different  purposes.  Let  us  note  a  few  of 
them. 

The  Lord  led  Saul  there  for  the  purpose  of  quiet  and 
retirement.     The  great  commentators  and  expositors  of 
the  early  Church,  as  we  have  already  noted,  used  to 
call  St.  Paul  by  the  special  title  of  "Vas  Electionis," 
the  chosen  vessel  par  excellence,   chosen  because  sur- 
passing   in    his    gifts    and    graces    and    achievements 
all  the   other   Apostles.     Now  it  was  with  the  "  Vas 
Electionis "  in  the  New  Testament  as  with  many  of 
his  types  in  the  Old   Testament.     When   God  would 
prepare    Moses    for    his    life's    work    in    shepherding, 
ruling,  and  guiding  His  people  through  the  deserts  of 
Arabia,  He  first  called  him  for  many  a  long  day  into 
retirement  to  the  Mount  of  Horeb  and  the   solitudes 
of  the  Sinaitic  desert.     When  God  would   strengthen 
and  console  the  spirit  depressed,  wounded  and  severely 
smitten,  of  his  servant  Elijah,  He  brought  him  to  the 
same  mysterious   spot,  and  there   restored   his  moral 
and  spiritual  tone,  and  equipped  him  with  new  strength 
for  his  warfare  by  the  visions  of  the  Almighty  lovingly 
vouchsafed  to  him.     The  Founder  or    Former   of  the 
Jewish  Dispensation  and  the  Reformer  of  the   same 
Dispensation  were  prepared    and    sustained    for    their 
work  amid  the  solitudes  of  the  Arabian  deserts ;  and 
what  more  fitting  place  in  which  the  "  Vas  Electionis," 
the  chosen  vessel  of  the  New  Dispensation,  should  be 
trained  ?     What  more  suitable  locality  where  the  Lord 
Jesus  should  make  those  fuller  and  completer  revela- 
tions of  Christian  doctrine  and  mystery  which  his  soul 
needed,   than  there  where   lightning-blasted    cliff  and 
towering  mountains  all  alike  spoke  of  God  and  of  His 
dealings  with   mankind    in    the    mysterious  ages  of  a 


86  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

long-departed  past  ?     The  Lord  thus  taught  St.  Paul, 
and  through  him  teaches  the  Church  of  every  age,  the 
need  of  seasons  of  retirement  and  communion  with  God 
preparatory  to  and  in  close  connexion  with  any  great 
work  or  scene  of  external  activity,   such  as   St.    Paul 
was  now  entering  upon.     It  is  a  lesson  much  needed 
by  this  age  of  ours  when  men  are   tempted  to  think 
so  much  of  practical  work  which  appears  at  once  in 
evidence,  making  its  presence  felt  in  tangible  results, 
and    so   very  little   of  devotional  work    and   spiritual 
retirement  which  cannot  be  estimated  by  any  earthly 
standard  or  tabulated  according  to  our  modern  methods. 
Men  are  now  inclined  to  think  lahorare  est  orare,  and 
that    active    external    work    faithfully   and   vigorously 
rendered   can  take  the  place  and  supply   the  want  of 
prayer  and  thought,  of  quiet  study  and  devout  medita- 
tion.     Against   such   a   tendency  the   Lord's  dealings 
with  St.  Paul,  yea  more,  the  Divine  dealings  with  and 
leadings  of  the  eternal  Son  Himself,  form  a  loud  and 
speaking  protest.     The  world  was  perishing  and  men 
were  going  down  to  the  grave  in  darkness  and  Satan 
and  sin  were  triumphing,  and  yet  Jesus  was  led  up  of 
the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  for  forty  days,  and  Saul 
was  brought  out  into  the  deserts  of  Arabia  from  amid 
the  teeming  crowds  of  Damascus  that  he  might  learn 
those  secrets  of  the   Divine  life  which  are  best  com- 
municated to  those  who  wait  upon  God  in  patient  prayer 
and  holy  retirement.     This  is  a  lesson  very  necessary 
for  this  hot  and  fitful  and  feverish  age  of  ours,  when 
men  are  in  such  a  hurry  to  have  everything  set  right 
and  every  abuse  destroyed  all  at  o/ice.      Their  haste 
is  not  after  the  Divine  model,  and  their  work  cannot 
expect  the  stability  and  solidity  we  find  in  God's.     The 
nineteenth-century  extreme  is  reproved  by  St.   Paul's 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  87 

retirement  into  Arabia.^  Man  is,  however,  such  a 
creature  that  if  he  avoids  one  extreme  he  generally 
tumbles  into  another.  And  so  it  is  in  this  matter. 
Men  have  been  ready  to  push  this  matter  of  retirement 
into  an  extreme,  and  have  considered  that  they  were 
following  St.  Paul's  example  in  retiring  into  the  Arabian 
and  similar  deserts  and  remaining  there.  But  they 
have  made  a  great  mistake.  St.  Paul  retired  into 
Arabia  for  a  while,  and  then  "returned  again  unto 
Damascus."  They  have  retired  into  the  deserts  and 
have  remained  there  engaged  in  the  one  selfish  task 
of  saving  their  own  souls,  as  they  thought,  by  the 
exercises  of  prayer  and  meditation,  apart  from  that 
life  of  active  good  works  for  the  sake  of  others  which 
constitutes  another  department  of  Christianity  equally 
vital  to  the  health  of  the  soul, 

'  We  may  apply  this  typical  fact  in  primitive  Church  history  in  a 
very  modern  direction.  It  would  be  very  well  if  candidates  for  the 
sacred  ministry  always  imitated  St.  Paul's  departure  into  Arabia.  I 
have  known  a  great  many  promising  careers  spoiled  because  young 
deacons  would  select  a  heavy,  laborious  town  or  city  charge  for  the 
opening  work  of  their  ministry.  They  know  nothing  of  life  or  the 
world.  They  know  nothing  of  preaching  or  pastoral  work.  They 
have,  too,  all  their  mistakes  to  make,  and  they  select  the  most  public 
place  for  their  perpetration.  But  this  is  not  the  worst.  They  form 
habits  of  busy  idleness  and  of  mental  dissipation  which  never  leave 
them.  The  first  two  or  three  years  of  a  young  clergyman's  life  generally 
determine  his  whole  career.  His  life  never  recovers  the  effect  of 
the  initial  movement.  I  think  the  great  outcry,  in  the  Church  of 
England  at  least,  against  sermons  largely  owing  to  the  decay  of  study 
resulting  from  premature  activity  on  the  part  of  the  junior  clergy.  Pre- 
mature development  in  any  direction  is  ever  followed  by  premature 
decay,  and  when  a  young  priest  or  deacon  is  engaged  every  day  and 
every  night  in  the  week  from  an  early  service  at  8  a.m.  till  night-school 
is  finished  at  10  p.m.  in  external  work,  how  can  he  prepare  for  teaching 
an  educated  congregation  on  Sundays  ?  And  surely  there  ought  to  be 
some  little  consideration  for  thinking  men  and  educated  women  as  well 
as  for  others.  ^  -^ 


88  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  history  of  Eastern  monasticism  is  marked  from 
its  earliest  days  by  an  eager  desire  to  follow  St.  Paul 
in  his  retirement  into  Arabia,  and  an  equal  disinclina- 
tion to  return  with  him  unto  Damascus.  And  this 
characteristic,  this  intense  devotion  to  a  life  of  soli- 
tude strangely  enough  passed  over  to  our  own 
Western  islands,  and  is  a  dominant  feature  of  the 
monasticism  which  prevailed  in  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  in  the  days  of  Celtic  Christianity.  The  Syrian 
and  Egyptian  monks  passed  over  to  Lerins  and 
Southern  Gaul,  whence  their  disciples  came  to  England 
and  Ireland,  where  they  established  themselves,  bring- 
ing with  them  all  their  Eastern  love  of  solitary  deserts. 
This  taste  they  perpetuated,  as  may  be  seen  especially 
on  the  western  coast  of  Ireland,  where  the  ruins  of 
extensive  monastic  settlements  still  exist,  testifying  to 
this  craving.  The  last  islands,  for  instance,  which  a 
traveller  sees  as  he  steams  away  from  Cork  to  America, 
are  called  the  Skelligs.  They  are  ten  miles  west  of  the 
Kerry  coast,  and  yet  there  on  these  rocks  where  a  boat 
cannot  land  sometimes  for  months  together  the  early 
monks  of  the  fifth  and  six  centuries  established  them- 
selves as  in  a  desert  in  the  ocean.  The  topography  of 
Ireland  is  full  of  evidences  and  witnesses  of  this  desire 
to  imitate  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  in  his  Arabian 
retirement.  There  are  dozens  of  town  lands — sub- 
divisions of  the  parishes — which  are  called  deserts  or 
diserts,^  because  they  constituted  solitudes  set  apart 
for  hermit  life  after  the  example  of  St.  Paul  in  Arabia 
and  John  the  Baptist  in  the  deserts  of  Judaea.  While, 
again,  when  we  turn  northwards  along  the  western 
seaboard   of  Ireland,   we  shall  find   numerous  islands 

'  Srae  Joyce's  Iris/i  Navies  of  Pisces,  vol.  i..  p.  335. 


ix.  19, 20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  89 

like  the  Skelligs,  Ardoilen  or  the  High  Island,  off  the 
coast  of  Connemara,  and  Innismurry  off  the  SUgo 
coast,  where  hermit  cells  in  the  regular  Egyptian  and 
Syrian  fashion  were  built,  and  still  exist  as  they  did 
a  thousand  years  ago,  testifying  to  the  longing  of  the 
human  mind  for  such  complete  solitude  and  close  com- 
munion with  God  as  Saul  enjoyed  when  he  departed 
from  Damascus/  The  monks  of  ancient  times  may 
have  run  into  one  extreme :  well  would  it  be  for  us 
if  we  could  avoid  the  other,  and  learn  to  cultivate 
self-communion,  meditation,  self-examination,  and  that 
realisation  of  the  eternal  world  which  God  grants  to 
those  who  wait  upon  Him  apart  from  the  bustle  and 
din  and  dust  of  earth,  which  clog  the  spiritual  senses 
and  dim  the  heavenly  vision. 

We  can  see  many  other  reasons  why  Paul  was  led 
into  Arabia.  He  was  led  there,  for  instance,  that  he 
might  make  a  thorough  scrutiny  of  his  motives. 
Silence,  separation,  solitude,  have  a  wondrous  tendency 
to  make  a  man  honest  with  himself  and  humbly  honest 
before  his  God.  Saul  might  have  been  a  hypocrite  or 
a  formalist  elsewhere,  where  human  eyes  and  jealous 
glances  were  bent  upon  him,  but  scarcely  when  there 
alone  with  Jehovah  in  the  desert.     Again,  Saul  was  led 

'  I  have  touched  upon  the  subject  of  the  connexion  between  Syria 
and  Egypt  and  Oriental  monasticism  on  the  one  hand,  and  Gaul, 
England,  and  Ireland  on  the  other,  during  the  period  which  elapsed 
between  a.d.  400  and  900,  in  Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church,  chs.  ix. 
and  xi.  I  have  discussed  it  at  greater  length  and  with  fuller  details  in 
two  papers  upon  the  Knowledge  of  Greek  in  Gaul  and  Ireland,  read 
before  the  Royal  Irish  Academy  in  February  1892,  now  published  in 
the  Proceedings  of  that  body  ;  and  also  in  two  papers,  one  upon  the 
Island  Monasteries  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  and  the  other  on 
St.  Fechin  of  Fore,  published,  the  former  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Ireland  for  1891,  and  the  latter  in  the  same 
Journal  for  April  1st,  1892. 


90  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

there  that  his  soul  might  be  ennobled  and  enlarged  by 
the  power  of  magnificent  scenery,  of  high  and  hallowed 
associations.  Mountain  and  cliff  and  flood,  specially 
those  which  have  been  magnified  and  made  honour- 
able by  grand  memories  such  as  must  have  crowded 
upon  Saul's  mind,  have  a  marvellous  effect,  enlarging, 
widening,  developing,  upon  a  soul  like  Saul's,  long 
cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined  within  the  rigorous 
bonds  of  Pharisaic  religionism.  Saul,  too,  was  led  up 
into  those  mysterious  regions  away  from  the  busy  life 
and  work,  the  pressing  calls  of  Damascus,  that  he 
might  speak  a  word  in  season  to  us  all,  and  especially 
to  those  young  in  the  Christian  life,  who  think  in  the 
first  burst  of  their  zeal  and  faith  as  if  they  had 
nothing  to  do  but  go  in  and  possess  the  whole  land. 
Saul  did  not  set  out  at  once  to  evangelise  the  masses 
of  Damascus,  or  to  waste  the  first  weak  beginnings 
of  his  spiritual  life  in  striving  to  benefit  or  awaken 
others.  He  was  first  led  away  into  the  deserts  of 
Arabia,  in  order  that  there  he  might  learn  of  the  deep 
things  of  God  and  of  the  weak  things  of  his  own  nature, 
and  then,  when  God  had  developed  his  spiritual  strength, 
He  led  him  back  to  Damascus  that  he  might  testify  out 
of  the  fulness  of  a  heart  which  knew  the  secrets  of  the 
Most  High.  The  teaching  of  Saul's  example  speaks 
loudly  to  us  all.  It  was  the  same  with  Saul  as  with  a 
greater  than  he.  The  Eternal  Son  Himself  was  trained 
amid  years  and  years  of  darkness  and  secrecy,  and 
even  after  His  baptism  the  day  of  His  manifestation 
unto  Israel  was  delayed  yet  a  little.  Jesus  Christ  was 
no  novice  when  He  came  preaching.  And  Saul  of 
Tarsus  was  no  novice  in  the  Christian  life  when  he 
appeared  as  the  Christian  advocate  in  the  synagogue 
of  Damascus.    Well  would  it  have  been  for  many  a 


ix.  I9,20.]  SAUL  AND  SINAI.  91 

soul  had  this  Divine  example  been  more  closely  copied. 
Again  and  again  have  the  young  and  ignorant  and 
inexperienced  been  encouraged  to  stand  up  as  public 
teachers^  immediately  after  they  have  been  seriously 
impressed.  They  have  yielded  to  the  unwise  solicita- 
tion. The  vanity  of  the  human  heart  has  seconded  the 
foolish  advice  given  to  them,  and  they  have  tried  to 
declare  the  deep  things  of  God  when  as  yet  they  have 
need  of  learning  the  very  first  principles  of  the  doctrine 
of  Christ.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  persons  often- 
times make  shipwreck  of  faith  and  a  sound  conscience  ? 
Truth  is  very  large  and  wide  and  spacious,  and  requires 
much  time  and  thought  if  it  is  to  be  assimilated ;  and 
even  when  truth  is  grasped  in  all  its  mighty  fulness, 
then  there  are  spiritual  enemies  within  and  without 
and  spiritual  pitfalls  to  be  avoided  which  can  be  known 
only  by  experience.  Woe  is  then  to  that  man  who  is 
not  assisted  by  grace  and  guided  by  Divine  experience, 
and  who  knows  not  God  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to 
come,  and  the  devious  paths  of  his  own  heart,  as  these 
things  can  only  be  known  and  learned  as  Saul  of  Tarsus 
knew  and  learned  them  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia.  There 
was  marvellous  wisdom  contained  in  the  brief  apostolic 
law  enacted  for  candidates  for  holy  orders  in  words 
gathered  from  St.  Paul's  own  personal  history,  "  Not  a 
novice,  lest  being  lifted  up  with  pride  he  fall  into  the 
condemnation  of  the  devil." 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT. 

"  Now  there  was  a  certain  man  in  Ctesarea,  Cornelius  by  name,  a  cen- 
tmion  of  the  band  called  the  Italian  band,  a  devout  man,  and  one  that 
feared  God  with  all  his  house,  who  gave  much  alms  to  the  people,  and 
prayed  to  God  alway.  He  saw  in  a  vision  openly,  as  it  were  about  the 
ninth  hour  of  the  day,  an  angel  of  God  coming  in  unto  him,  and  saying 
to  him,  Cornelius.  And  he,  fastening  his  eyes  upon  him,  and  being 
affrighted,  said.  What  is  it,  Lord  ?  And  he  said  unto  him,  Thy  prayers 
and  thine  alms  are  gone  up  for  a  memorial  before  God.  And  now  send 
men  to  Joppa,  and  fetch  one  Simon,  who  is  surnamed  Peter  :  he  lodgeth 
with  one  Simon  a  tanner,  whose  house  is  by  the  sea  side." — Acts  x.  i-6. 

WE  have  now  arrived  at  another  crisis  in  the 
history  of  the  early  Church  of  Christ.  The 
Day  of  Pentecost,  the  conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
the  call  of  Cornelius,  and  the  foundation  of  the 
Gentile  Church  of  Antioch  are,  if  we  are  to  pick  and 
choose  amid  the  events  related  by  St.  Luke,  the  turning- 
points  of  the  earliest  ecclesiastical  history.  The  con- 
version of  St.  Paul  is  placed  by  St.  Luke  before  the 
conversion  of  Cornelius,  and  is  closely  connected  with 
it.  Let  us  then  inquire  by  what  events  St.  Luke 
unites  the  two.  German  commentators  of  the  modern 
school,  who  are  nothing  unless  they  are  original,  have 
not  been  willing  to  allow  that  St.  Luke's  narrative  is 
continuous.  They  have  assigned  various  dates  to  the 
conversion  of  Cornehus.  Some  have  made  it  precede 
the  conversion  of  St,  Paul,  others  have  fixed  it  to  the 

92 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  93 

time  of  Paul's  sojourn  in  Arabia,  and  so  on,  without 
any  other  solid  reasons  than  what  their  own  fancies 
suggest,  I  prefer,  however,  to  think  that  St,  Luke's 
narrative  follows  the  great  broad  outHnes  of  the  Chris- 
tian story,  and  sets  forth  the  events  of  the  time  in  a 
divinely  ordered  sequence.  At  any  rate  I  prefer  to 
follow  the  course  of  events  as  the  narrative  suggests 
them,  till  I  see  some  good  reason  to  think  otherwise. 
I  do  not  think  that  the  mere  fact  that  the  sacred  writer 
states  events  in  a  certain  order  is  a  sufficient  reason 
to  think  that  the  true  order  must  have  been  quite 
a  different  one.  Taking  them  in  this  light  they  yield 
themselves  very  naturally  to  the  work  of  an  expositor. 
Let  us  reflect  then  upon  that  sequence  as  here  set 
forth  for  us. 

Saul  of  Tarsus  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  confer  with 
St.  Peter,  who  had  been  hitherto  the  leading  spirit 
of  the  apostolic  conclave.  He  laboured  in  Jerusalem 
among  the  Hellenistic  synagogues  for  some  fifteen 
days.  A  conspiracy  was  then  formed  against  his  life. 
The  Lord,  ever  watchful  over  His  chosen  servant, 
warned  him  to  depart  from  Jerusalem,  indicating  to 
him  as  he  prayed  in  the  Temple  the  scope  and  sphere 
of  his  future  work,  saying,  "  Depart :  for  I  will  send 
thee  forth  far  hence  unto  the  Gentiles "  (see  Acts 
xxii.  21).  The  Christians  of  Jerusalem,  having  learned 
the  designs  of  his  enemies,  conveyed  Saul  to  Caesarea, 
the  chief  Roman  port  of  Palestine,  whence  they  de- 
spatched him  to  Cilicia,  his  native  province,  where 
he  laboured  in  obscurity  and  quietness  for  some  time. 
St.  Peter  may  have  been  one  of  the  rescue  party 
who  saved  Saul  from  the  hands  of  his  enemies  escort- 
ing him  to  Caesarea,  and  this  circumstance  may  have 
led  him  to  the  western  district  of  the   country.     At 


94  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

any  rate  we  find  him  soon  after  labouring  in  Western 
Palestine  at  some  distance  from  Jerusalem.  Philip 
the  Evangelist  had  been  over  the  same  ground  a  short 
time  previously,  and  St.  Peter  may  have  been  sent 
forth  by  the  mother  Church  to  supervise  his  work 
and  confer  that  formal  imposition  of  hands  which  from 
the  beginning  has  formed  the  completion  of  baptism, 
and  seems  to  have  been  reserved  to  the  Apostles  or 
their  immediate  delegates.  Peter's  visit  to  Western 
Palestine,  to  Lydda  and  Sharon  and  Joppa,  may  have 
been  just  like  the  visit  he  had  paid  some  time  pre- 
viously, in  company  with  St.  John,  to  the  city  of 
Samaria,  when  he  came  for  the  first  time  in  contact 
with  Simon  Magus.  St.  Luke  gives  us  here  a  note 
of  time  helping  us  to  fix  approximately  the  date  of 
the  formal  admission  of  Cornelius  and  the  Gentiles 
into  the  Church,  He  mentions  that  the  Churches  then 
enjoyed  peace  and  quietness  all  through  Palestine, 
enabling  St.  Peter  to  go  upon  his  work  of  preaching 
and  supervision.  It  may  perhaps  strike  some  persons 
that  this  temporary  peace  must  have  been  attained 
through  the  conversion  of  Saul,  the  most  active  per- 
secutor. But  that  event  had  happened  more  than  two 
years  before,  in  the  spring  of  37  a.d.,  and,  far  from 
diminishing,  would  probably  have  rather  intensified 
the  hostiHty  of  the  Jewish  hierarchy.  It  was  now  the 
autumn  of  the  year  39,  and  a  bitter  spirit  still  lingered 
at  Jerusalem,  as  Saul  himself  and  the  whole  Church 
had  just  proved.  External  authorities,  Jewish  and 
Roman  history,  here  step  in  to  illustrate  and  confirm 
the  sacred  narrative. 

The  Emperor  Caius  Cahgula,  who  ascended  the 
throne  of  the  empire  about  the  time  of  Stephen's 
martyrdom,  was  a  strange  character.     He  was  wholly 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  95 

self-willed,  madly  impious,  utterly  careless  of  human 
life,  as  indeed  unregenerate  mankind  ever  is.  Chris- 
tianity alone  has  taught  the  precious  value  of  the 
individual  human  soul  the  awful  importance  of  human 
life  as  the  probation  time  for  eternity,  and  has  thereby 
ameliorated  the  harshness  of  human  laws,  the  stern- 
ness of  human  rulers,  ready  to  inflict  capital  punishment 
on  any  pretence  whatsoever.  Caligula  determined  to 
establish  the  worship  of  himself  throughout  the  world. 
He  had  no  opposition  to  dread  from  the  pagans, 
who  were  ready  to  adopt  any  creed  or  any  cult, 
no  matter  how  degrading,  which  their  rulers  pre- 
scribed. Caligula  knew, -however,  that  the  Jews  were 
more  obstinate,  because  they  alone  were  conscious 
that  they  possessed  a  Divine  revelation.  He  issued 
orders,  therefore,  to  Petronius,  the  Roman  governor 
of  Syria,  Palestine,  and  the  East,  to  erect  his  statue  in 
Jerusalem  and  to  compel  the  Jews  to  offer  sacrifice 
thereto.  Josephus  tells  us  of  the  opposition  which  the 
Jews  offered  to  Caligula ;  how  they  abandoned  their 
agricultural  operations  and  assembled  in  thousands  at 
different  points,  desiring  Petronius  to  slay  them  at  once, 
as  they  could  never  live  if  the  Divine  laws  were  so 
violated.  The  whole  energies  of  the  nation  were  for 
months  concentrated  on  this  one  object,  the  repeal  of 
the  impious  decree  of  Caligula,  which  they  at  last 
attained  through  their  own  determination  and  by  the 
intervention  of  Herod  Agrippa,  who  was  then  at  Rome.^ 

'  See  the  whole  story  told  at  length  in  Josephus,  Antiquities,  Book 
XVIII.,  ch,  viii.,  8,  and  in  his  Wars,  Book  II.,  ch.  x.  This  story,  which 
is  little  known  to  Bible  students,  is  most  interesting.  It  fully  explains 
the  repose  from  persecution  which  the  Church  enjoyed  at  the  time  of 
the  conversion  of  Cornelius  and  helps  us  to  fix  its  date.  In  the  year 
39  Petronius,  the  prefect  of  Syria,  received  orders  from  the  Emperor 
Caligula  to  set  up  his  statue  as  a  god  in  the  Temple.     He  advanced  to 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


It  was  during  this  awful  period  of  uncertainty  and 
opposition  that  the  infant  Church  enjoyed  a  brief  period 
of  repose  and  quiet  growth,  because  the  whole  nation 
from  the  high  priest  to  the  lowest  beggar  had  some- 
thing else  to  think  of  than  how  to  persecute  a  new 
sect  that  was  as  yet  rigorously  scrupulous  in  observing 
the  law  of  Moses.  During  this  period  of  repose  from 
persecution  St,  Peter  made  his  tour  of  inspection 
"  throughout  all  parts,"  Samaria,  Galilee,  Judaea,  ter- 
minating   with    Lydda,  where  he    healed,   or   at    least 

fulfil  the  Emperor's  command  with  two  legions  and  a  number  of 
auxiliary  troops,  and  came  as  far  as  Ptolemais,  a  maritime  town  of  Galilee, 
which  is  mentioned  in  Acts  xxi.  7  as  a  place  where  St.  Paul  visited  a 
Church,  of  which  we  hear  nothing  else.  The  Jewish  nation  met  the 
prefect  there  in  tens  of  thousands,  entreating  him  to  desist  or  else 
to  put  them  to  immediate  death.  He  halted  his  army  and  appointed 
a  further  conference  at  Tiberias,  where  the  people  met  him  and  con- 
tinued their  entreaties  for  fifty  days,  though  it  was  seed-time  and  a 
famine  might  result  from  their  neglect  of  the  spring  operations. 
Petronius  suspended  his  operations  for  the  time,  and  wrote  back  to  the 
Emperor  an  account  of  the  Jewish  opposition.  Herod  Agrippa  too, 
who  was  then  at  Rome  and  in  high  favour  with  the  Emperor,  lent  his 
assistance,  and  obtained  a  temporary  respite  for  the  Jews  by  a  timely 
and  expensive  banquet  which  he  pi'epared  for  him.  Towards  the  close 
of  A.D.  40  Caligula,  however,  determined  to  set  out  and  personally 
compel  the  obedience  of  the  Jews.  But  his  assassination  in  January  41 
relieved  their  apprehensions,  and  freed  the  world  from  Caligula's  mad 
freaks.  During  that  period  of  anxiety,  lasting  fully  a  year  and  a  half, 
the  Jews  had  neither  time  nor  thought  for  the  new  sect,  which  was 
opposed  as  strongly  as  themselves  to  the  Emperor's  impious  projects 
and  whose  members  doubtless  flung  themselves  as  heartily  into  the 
opposition.  The  Jews  at  Alexandria  suffered  at  the  same  time  a 
terrible  persecution,  of  which  Philo  and  Josephus  tell  :  see  Mommsen's 
Provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  190-96  (Dickson's  Trans- 
lation). This  is  one  of  those  incidental  touches  which  prove  the 
wonderful  accuracy  of  this  book  of  the  Acts.  Dr.  Lightfoot  has 
remarked  {Essays  on  Supernatural  Religion)  that  no  book  of  the  Bible 
has  so  many  points  of  contact  with  current  histcrry  and  politics  as  the 
Acts,  and  can  therefore  be  more  easily  tested.  This  special  case  is  an 
interesting  Illustration  of  the  learned  bishop's  view. 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE  CONVERT.  g'j 

prayed  for  the  healing  of,  -^neas/  and  with  Joppa, 
where  his  prayer  was  followed  by  the  restoration  of 
Tabitha  or  Dorcas,  who  has  given  a  designation  now 
widely  applied  to  the  assistance  which  devout  women 
can  give  to  their  poorer  sisters  in  Christ. 

We  thus  see  how  God  by  the  secret  guidance  of  His 
Spirit,  shaping  his  course  by  ways  and  roads  known 
only  to  Himself,  led  St.  Peter  to  the  house  of  Simon 
the  tanner,  where  he  abode  many  days  waiting  in 
patience  to  know  God's  mind  and  will  which  were 
soon  to  be  opened  out  to  him.  We  have  now  traced 
the  line  of  events  which  connect  the  conversion  of 
Saul  of  Tarsus  with  that  of  Cornelius  the  centurion 
of  Caesarea.  Let  us  apply  ourselves  to  the  circum- 
stances surrounding  the  latter  event,  which  is  of  such 
vital  importance  to  us  Gentile  Christians  as  having 
been  the  formal  Divine  proclamation  to  the  Church  and 
to  the  world  that  the  mystery  which  had  been  hid  for 
ages  was  now  made  manifest,  and  that  the  Gentiles  were 
spiritually  on  an  equality  with  the  Jews.  The  Church 
was  now  about  to  burst  the  bonds  which  had  restrained 
it  for  five  years  at  least.  We  stand  by  the  birth  of 
European  Christendom  and  of  modern  civilisation.  It 
is  well,  then,  that  we  should  learn  and  inwardly  digest 
every,  even  the  slightest,  detail  concerning  such  a  trans- 
cendent and  notable  crisis.  Let  us  take  them  briefly 
one  by  one  as  the  sacred  narrative  reports  them. 

L  I  note,  then,  in  the  first  place  that  the  time  of  this 
conversion  was  wisely  and  providentially  chosen.  The 
time  was  just  about  eight  years  after  the  Ascension  and 

'  Perhaps  it  is  well  to  note  that  this  is  not  the  classical  word  ^neas, 
which  in  Greek  would  be  represented  by  Alvelas,  but  a  different  name 
with  a  short  e,  and  is  written  in  Greek  AtV^as.  The  latter  is  found  in 
Thucydides  and  Xenophon  :  see  Meyer  in  loco, 

VOL.   II.  7 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


the  foundation  of  the  Church.  Time  enough  therefore 
had  elapsed  for  Christianity  to  take  root  among  the 
Jews.  This  was  most  important.  The  gospel  was 
first  planted  among  the  Jews,  took  form  and  life  and 
shape,  gained  its  initial  impulse  and  direction  among 
God's  ancient  people  in  order  that  the  constitution,  the 
discipline,  and  the  worship  of  the  Church  might  be 
framed  on  the  ancient  Jewish  model  and  might  be  built 
up  by  men  whose  minds  were  cast  in  a  conservative 
mould.  Not  that  we  have  the  old  law  with  its  weari- 
some and  burdensome  ritual  perpetuated  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  That  law  was  a  yoke  too  heavy  for  man 
to  bear.  But,  then,  the  highest  and  best  elements  of 
the  old  Jewish  system  have  been  perpetuated  in  the 
Chureh.  There  was  in  Judaism  by  God's  own  appoint- 
ment a  public  ministry,  a  threefold  public  ministry  too, 
exercised  by  the  high  priest,  the  priests,  and  the 
Levites.  There  is  in  Christianity  a  threefold  ministry 
exercised  by  bishops,  presbyters  or  elders,  and  deacons.^ 
There  were  in  Judaism  public  and  consecrated  sanc- 
tuaries, fixed  liturgies,  public  reading  of  God's  Word, 
a  service  of  choral  worship,  hymns  of  joy  and  thanks- 
giving, the  sacraments  of  Holy  Communion  and 
baptism  in  a  rudimentary  shape ;  all  these  were  trans- 
ferred from  the  old  system  that  was  passing  away  into 
the  new  system  that  was  taking  its  place.  Had  the 
Gentiles  been  admitted  much  earlier  all  this  might  not 
have  so  easily  happened.     Men  do  not  easily  change 

'  I  do  not  intend  to  raise  any  disputed  question  as  to  Church  polity 
and  government  in  this  book,  and  so  I  may  point  out,  without  compro- 
mising my  own  views  in  the  least,  that  even  a  Presbyterian  may  agree 
in  this  statement,  as  he  may  hold  that  his  own  teaching  elder  or  minister 
corresponds  to  the  primitive  bishop,  his  ruling  elders  to  the  presbyters, 
and  his  own  deacons  to  the  ancient  deacons.  Presbyterianism  claims 
thus  a  threefold  ministry  as  well  as  Episcopacy. 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  99 

their  habits.  Habits,  indeed,  are  chains  which  rivet 
themselves  year  by  year  with  ever-increasing  power 
round  our  natures ;  and  the  Jewish  converts  brought 
their  habits  of  thought  and  worship  into  the  Church  of 
Christ,  estabHshing  there  those  institutions  of  prayer 
and  worship,  of  sacramental  communion  and  preaching 
which  we  still  enjoy.  But  we  must  observe,  on  the 
other  hand,  that,  had  the  Gentiles  been  admitted  a  little 
later,  the  Church  might  have  assumed  too  Jewish  and 
Levitical  an  aspect.  This  pause  of  eight  years,  during 
which  Jews  alone  formed  the  Church,  is  another 
instance  of  those  delays  of  the  Lord  ^  which,  whether 
they  happen  in  public  or  in  private  life,  are  always 
found  in  the  long  run  to  be  wise,  blessed,  and  provi- 
dential things,  though  for  a  time  they  may  seem  dark 
and  mysterious,  according  to  that  ancient  strain  of 
the  Psalmist,  "Wait  on  the  Lord,  .  .  .  and  He  shall 
strengthen  thine  heart :  wait,  I  say,  upon  the  Lord."  ^ 

n.  Again,  the  place  where  the  Church  burst  its 
Jewish  shell  and  emerged  into  full  gospel  freedom  is 
noteworthy.  It  was  at  Caesarea.  It  is  a  great  pity  that 
people  do  not  make  more  use  of  maps  in  their  study  of 

'  What  a  fine  subject  for  historical  study  the  delays  of  the  Lord 
would  prove.  The  delay  of  the  Incarnation  till  the  world  was  ready 
is  a  supreme  instance  of  them.  The  delay  of  the  triumph  of  Chris- 
tianity, of  the  break  up  of  the  Roman  Empire,  of  the  Reformation  so 
often  attempted  but  never  effected  till  the  invention  of  printing  and  the 
revival  of  learning, — these  and  numerous  other  illustrations  fling  light 
upon  the  darkness  which  still  surrounds  the  Divine  methods  and  dispen- 
sations amid  which  we  live. 

'^  This  and  several  other  thoughts  in  this  chapter  will  be  found 
worked  out  in  a  sermon  of  Bishop  Jebb,  a  well-knoMTi  preacher  of  the 
last  generation  who  is  now  almost  forgotten.  Yet  he  published  several 
volumes  of  sermons  and  other  theological  works,  which  had  no  small 
influence  in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  Oxford  movement.  His 
sermons  are  full  of  matter,  though  not  composed  in  a  modern  style. 


loo  ,    THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Holy  Scripture.  Sunday  evenings  are  often  a  dull 
time  in  Christian  households,  and  the  bare  mechanical 
reading  of  Scripture  and  of  good  books  often  only 
makes  them  duller.  How  much  livelier,  interesting,  and 
instructive  they  would  be  were  an  attempt  made  to 
trace  the  journeys  of  the  apostles  with  a  map,  or  to 
study  the  scenes  where  they  laboured — Jerusalem, 
Caesarea,  Damascus,  Ephesus,  Athens,  and  Rome — with 
some  of  tjie  helps  which  modern  scholarship  and  com- 
mercial enterprise  now  place  within  easy  reach.  I  can 
speak  thus  with  the  force  of  personal  experience,  for 
my  own  keen  interest  in  this  book  which  I  am  ex- 
pounding dates  from  the  Sunday  evenings  of  boyhood 
thus  spent,  though  without  many  of  the  aids  which  now 
lie  within  the  reach  of  all.  This  is  essentially  the 
modern  method  of  stud}^,  especially  in  matters  histori- 
cal. A  modern  investigator  and  explorer  of  Bible 
sites  and  lands  has  well  expressed  this  truth  when 
he  said,  "Topography  is  the  foundation  of  history. 
If  we  are  ever  to  understand  history,  we  must  under- 
stand the  places  where  that  history  was  transacted."  ^ 
The  celebrated  historians  the  late  Mr,  Freeman 
and  Mr,  Green  worked  a  revolution  in  English  histori- 
cal methods  by  teaching  people   that  an  indefatigable 

This  cannot  be  wondered  at  when  we  find  from  his  well-known  corre- 
spondence with  Alexander  Knox  that  a  single  sermon  sometimes  was 
the  work  of  several  months,  if  not  even  years.  The  leisurely  character 
of  even  busy  lives  in  the  opening  years  of  this  century  is  strikingly  illus- 
trated by  the  correspondence  between  these  learned  men.  Bishop  Jebb 
preached  a  sermon  in  1 804  on  the  well-known  Vincentian  rule  of  faith, 
"  Quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  etc."  This  sermon  he  elaborated  till  1815, 
and  then  published  it.  It  played  no  small  part  in  religious  controversies 
between  181 5  and  1840,  as  a  reference  to  the  Christian  Obsei-ver,  the 
Christian  Examiner,  and  other  religious  periodicals  of  that  time  will 
show. 

'  See  Ramsay's  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  pp.  51,  52. 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  loi 

use  of  maps  and  a  careful  study  of  the  physical 
features  of  any  country  are  absolutely  needful  for  a 
true  conception  of  its  history.  In  this  respect  at  least 
secular  history  and  sacred  history  are  alike.  Without 
a  careful  study  of  the  map  we  cannot  understand  God's 
dealings  with  the  Church  of  Christ,  as  is  manifest  from 
the  case  of  Caesarea  at  which  we  have  arrived.  The 
narratives  of  the  Gospels  and  of  the  Acts  will  be  con- 
fused, unintelligible,  unless  we  understand  that  there 
were  two  Caesareas  in  Palestine,  one  never  mentioned 
in  the  Gospels,  the  other  never  mentioned  in  the  Acts. 
Caesarea  Philippi  was  a  celebrated  city  of  North-eastern 
Palestine.  It  was  when  our  Lord  was  within  its 
borders  that  St.  Peter  made  his  celebrated  confession, 
"Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God," 
told  of  in  St.  Matthew  xvi.  13-16.  This  is  the  only 
Caesarea  of  which  we  hear  in  the  Gospels.  It  was 
an  inland  town,  built  by  the  Herods  in  joint  honour 
of  themselves  and  of  their  patrons  the  Emperors  of 
Rome,  and  bore  all  the  traces  of  its  origin.  It  was 
decorated  with  a  splendid  pagan  temple,  was  a  tho- 
roughly pagan  town,  and  was  therefore  abhorred  by 
every  true  Jew.  There  was  another  Caesarea,  the  great 
Roman  port  of  Palestine  and  the  capital,  where  the 
Roman  governors  resided.  It  was  situated  in  the 
borders  of  Phoenicia,  in  a  north-westerly  direction 
from  Jerusalem,  with  which  it  was  connected  by  a  fine 
military  road.^     This  Caesarea  had  been  originally  built 

'  The  most  detailed  account  of  Cresarea-on-the-Sea,  its  ruins  and 
present  state,  will  be  found  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Survey  of  Western 
Palestine,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  13-29.  It  is  accompanied  with  plans  and  maps, 
which  show  that  ancient  Roman  Ccesarea  was  ten  times  the  size  of  the 
medieval  city  which  the  Cnxsaders  occupied.  Geikie's  The  Holy  Land 
and  the  Bible,  ch.  iv.,  gives  a  very  interesting  account  of  the  ancient 
and  modern  state  of  Caesarea. 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


by  Herod  the  Great.  He  spent  twelve  years  at  this 
undertaking,  and  succeeded  in  making  it  a  splendid 
monument  of  the  magnificence  of  his  conceptions.  The 
seaboard  of  Palestine  is  totally  devoid  to  this  day  of 
safe  harbours.  Herod  constructed  a  harbour  at  vast 
expense.  Let  us  hear  the  story  of  its  foundation  in 
the  very  words  of  the  Jewish  historian.  Josephus  tells 
us  that  Herod,  observing  "  that  Joppa  and  Dora  are 
not  fit  for  havens  on  account  of  the  impetuous  south 
winds  which  beat  upon  them,  which,  rolling  the  sands 
which  come  from  the  sea  against  the  shores,  do  not 
admit  of  ships  lying  in  their  station  ;  but  the  merchants 
are  generally  there  forced  to  ride  at  their  anchors  in  the 
sea  itself.  So  Herod  endeavoured  to  rectify  this  incon- 
venience, and  laid  out  such  a  compass  toward  the  land 
as  might  be  sufficient  for  a  haven,  wherein  the  great 
ships  might  lie  in  safety ;  and  this  he  effected  by  letting 
down  vast  stones  of  above  fifty  feet  in  length,  not  less 
than  eighteen  in  breadth  and  nine  in  depth,  into  twenty 
fathoms  deep."  ^  The  Romans,  when  they  took  posses- 
sion of  Palestine,  adopted  and  developed  Herod's  plans, 
and  established  Csesarea  on  the  coast  as  the  permanent 
residence  of  the  procurator  of  Palestine.  And  it  was 
a  wise  policy.  The  Romans,  like  the  English,  had  a 
genius  for  government.  They  fixed  their  provincial 
capitals  upon  or  near  the  sea-coast  that  their  commu- 
nications might  be  ever  kept  open.  Thus  in  our  own 
case  Calcutta,  Bombay,  Madras,  Capetown,  Quebec,  and 
Dublin  are  all  seaport  towns.  And  so  in  ancient  times 
Antioch,    Alexandria,    Tarsus,     Ephesus,     Marseilles, 


'  See  Josephus,  Antiquities,  XV.  ix.  6  ;  Wars  of  lews,  I.  xxi.  Mr. 
Lewin,  in  his  Life  of  St.  Paul,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  spends  several  pages  in 
an  elaborate  discussion  of  the  buildings  and  plan  of  Ccesarea,  to  which 
it  must  here  suffice  to  refer. 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  103 

Corinth,  London,  were  all  seaports  and  provincial  Roman 
capitals  as  Caesarea  was  in  Palestine,  And  it  was  a  very 
wise  policy.  The  Jews  were  a  fierce,  bold,  determined 
people  when  they  revolted.  If  the  seat  of  Roman  rule 
had  been  fixed  at  Jerusalem,  a  rebellion  might  com- 
pletely cut  off  all  effective  relief  from  the  besieged 
garrison,  which  would  never  happen  at  Caesarea  so  long 
as  the  command  of  the  sea  was  vested  in  the  vast 
navies  which  the  Roman  State  possessed.  Caesarea 
was  to  a  large  extent  a  Gentile  city,  though  within 
some  seventy  miles  of  Jerusalem.  It  had  a  considerable 
Jewish  population  with  their  attendant  synagogues, 
but  the  most  prominent  features  were  pagan  temples, 
one  of  them  serving  for  a  lighthouse  and  beacon  for 
the  ships  which  crowded  its  harbour,  together  with  a 
theatre  and  an  amphitheatre,  where  scenes  were  daily 
enacted  from  which  every  sincere  Jew  must  have  shrunk 
with  horror.  Such  was  the  place — a  most  fitting  place. 
Gentile,  pagan,  idolatrous  to  the  very  core  and  centre 
— where  God  chose  to  reveal  Himself  as  Father  of  the 
Gentiles  as  well  as  of  the  Jews,  and  showed  Christ's 
gospel  as  a  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles  as  well  as 
the  glory  of  His  people  Tsrael. 

III.  Then,  again,  \he  person  chosen  as  the  channel 
of  this  revelation  is  a  striking  character.  He  was 
"  Cornelius  by  name,  a  centurion  of  the  band  called 
the  Italian  band."  ^    Here,  then,  we  note  first  of  all  that 

'  Cornelius  was  a  centurion  of  the  Italian  band.  This  is  another  of 
the  accidental  coincidences  which  attest  the  genuineness  of  the  Acts.  The 
Roir.an  army  was  divided  into  two  broad  divisions,  the  legions  and  the 
auxiliary  forces.  Now  the  legions  were  never  permanently  quartered  in 
Palestine  till  the  great  war  which  ended  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
which  began  in  A.D.  66  and  ended  in  A.D.  70.  A  legion  was  then  for 
the  first  time  stationed  with  a  fixed  camp  upon  the  site  of  the  Holy 
City :  see  Mommsen's  Roman  Proz'inces,  ii.  218.     The  auxiliary  forces 


I04  THE  ACTS    OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Cornelius  was  a  Roman  soldier.  Let  us  pause  and 
reflect  upon  this.  In  no  respect  does  the  New  Testa- 
ment display  more  clearly  its  Divine  origin  than  in  the 
manner  in  which  it  rises  superior  to  mere  provincialism. 
There  are  no  narrow  national  prejudices  about  it  like 
those  which  nowadays  lead  Englishmen  to  despise 
other  nations,  or  those  which  in  ancient  times  led  a 
thorough-going  Jew  to  look  down  with  sovereign  con- 
tempt on  the  Gentile  world  as  mere  dogs  and  outcasts. 
The  New  Testament  taught  that  all  men  were  equal 
and  were  brothers  in  blood,  and  thus  laid  the  founda- 

were  a  kind  of  militia  raised  upon  the  spot.  Palestine  was  made  a 
province  of  the  second  rank  in  A.D.  6,  and  from  that  time  to  the  year 
66  was  garrisoned,  like  all  second-rank  provinces,  exclusively  by 
auxiliary  troops,  the  headquarters  of  which  were  at  Ctesarea.  These 
auxiliaries,  reciiiited  amongst  the  Samaritans  and  Syrian  Greeks, 
numbered  one  ala  and  five  cohorts,  about  three  thousand  men  :  see 
Mommsen,  loc.  cit.,  p.  i86.  It  would  not  have  been  prudent,  however, 
to  have  a  garrison  in  Palestine  exclusively  composed  of  troops  locally 
recruited,  even  though  restricted  to  Samaritans  and  Syrians,  just  as  no 
prudent  English  government  would  garrison  Ireland  with  a  militia 
drawn  from  Ulster  Orangemen  alone.  The  Roman  Government  there- 
fore mingled  with  the  garrison  of  Csesarea  an  auxiliary  cohort  composed 
of  Italians.  There  were  thirty-two  Italian  auxiliary  cohorts  which  were 
thus  used  as  a  salutary  precaution  against  treachery  on  the  part  of  the 
local  militia.  See,  on  this  interesting  point,  Marquardt,  U  Organisation 
Militaire  chcz  les  Remains,  p.  189  (French  Edition),  where  this  learned 
German  writer  often  quotes  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  to  illustrate  the 
military  arrangements  in  Palestine  during  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  first 
century.  Such  was  the  military  organisation  of  Palestine  from  A.  D.  6  to 
66.  After  that  period  Palestine  was  ruled  in  the  sternest  military 
manner,  and  treated  like  a  border  province  subject  to  martial  law  with 
legionaries  scattered  all  over  it.  Now  if  the  Acts  were  written  in  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century,  a  writer  would  almost  certainly  have 
missed  the  correct  description  of  the  troops  stationed  at  Ccesarea  as 
St.  Luke  gives  it  in  this  passage.  See  also  the  article  "  Exercitus  "  in 
the  new  edition  of  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Roman  and  Greek  Antiquities  ; 
Mommsen,  on  the  Roman  Legions,  in  Ephcmeris  Epigraphica,  vol.  v. 
and  Pfitzner,  Geschichte  der  Rdiiiischen  Kaiserlegioncn. 


X.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  105 

tions  of  those  modern  conceptions  which  have  well- 
nigh  swept  slavery  from  the  face  of  civilised  Chris- 
tendom. The  New  Testament  and  its  teaching  is  the 
parent  of  that  modern  liberalism  which  now  rules 
every  circle,  no  matter  what  its  political  designation. 
In  no  respect  does  this  universal  catholic  feeling  of 
the  New  Testament  display  itself  more  clearly  than 
in  the  pictures  it  presents  to  us  of  Roman  military 
men.  They  are  uniformly  most  favourable.  Without 
one  single  exception  the  pictures  drawn  for  us  of  every 
centurion  and  soldier  mentioned  in  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament  are  bright  with  some  element  of  good 
shining  out  conspicuously  by  way  of  favourable  contrast, 
when  brought  side  by  side  with  the  Jewish  people, 
upon  whom  more  abundant  and  more  blessed  privileges 
had  been  in  vain  lavished.  Let  us  just  note  a  few 
instances  which  will  illustrate  our  view.  The  soldiers 
sought  John's  baptism  and  humbly  received  John's 
penitential  advice  and  direction  when  priests  and  scribes 
rejected  the  Lord's  messenger  (Luke  iii.  14).  A  soldier 
and  a  centurion  received  Christ's  commendation  for  the 
exercise  of  a  faith  surpassing  in  its  range  and  spiritual 
perception  any  faith  which  the  Master  had  found  within 
the  bounds  and  limits  of  Israel  according  to  the  flesh. 
"  Verily  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in 
Israel,"  were  Christ's  almost  wondering  words  as  He 
heard  the  confession  of  His  God-like  nature.  His  Divine 
power  involved  in  the  centurion's  prayer  of  humility, 
"  I  am  not  worthy  that  Thou  shouldest  come  under  my 
roof:  but  only  say  the  word,  and  my  servant  shall  be 
healed"  (cf.  Matt.  viii.  5-13).  So  was  it  again  with  the 
centurion  to  whom  the  details  of  our  Lord's  execution 
were  committed.  He  too  is  painted  in  a  favourable 
light.     He  had  an  open  mind,  willing  to  receive  evidence. 


io6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

He  received  that  evidence  under  the  most  unfavour- 
able conditions.  His  mind  was  convinced  of  our  Lord's 
mission  and  character,  not  by  His  triumphs,  but  by  His 
apparent  defeat.  As  the  victim  of  Jewish  malice  and 
prejudice  yielded  up  the  ghost  and  committed  His  pure, 
unspotted  soul  to  the  hands  of  His  heavenly  Father, 
then  it  was  that,  struck  by  the  supernatural  spirit  of  love 
and  gentleness  and  forgiveness — those  great  forces  of 
Christianity  which  never  at  any  other  time  or  in  any 
other  age  have  had  their  full  and  fair  play — the  centurion 
yielded  the  assent  of  his  affections  and  of  his  intellect 
to  the  Divine  mission  of  the  suffering  Saviour,  and 
cried,  "  Truly  this  man  was  the  Son  of  God "  (Matt. 
xxvii.  54).  So  it  was  again  with  Julius  the  centurion, 
who  courteously  entreated  St.  Paul  on  his  voyage  as 
a  prisoner  to  Rome  (Acts  xxvii.  3);  and  so  again  it 
was  with  Cornelius  the  centurion,  of  the  band  called 
the  Italian  band. 

Now  how  comes  this  to  pass  ?  What  a  striking 
evidence  of  the  workings  and  presence  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  in  the  writers  of  our  sacred  books  we  may  find 
in  this  fact  !  The  Roman  soldiers  were  of  course  the 
symbols  to  a  patriotic  Jew  of  a  hated  foreign  sway,  of 
an  idolatrous  jurisdiction  and  rule.  A  Jew  uninfluenced 
by  supernatural  grace  and  unguided  by  Divine  inspira- 
tion would  never  have  drawn  such  pictures  of  Roman 
centurions  as  the  New  Testament  has  handed  down 
to  us.  The  pictures,  indeed,  drawn  by  the  opposition 
press  of  any  country  is  not  generally  a  favourable 
one  when  dealing  with  the  persons  and  officials  of 
the  dominant  party.  But  the  apostles — Jews  though 
they  were  of  narrow,  provincial,  prejudiced  Galilee — 
had  drunk  deep  of  the  spirit  of  the  new  religion. 
They  recognised   that  Jesus  Christ,  the  King  of  the 


I.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  107 


kingdom  of  heaven,  cared  nothing  about  what  form  of 
government  men  Hved  under.  They  knew  that  Christ 
ignored  all  differences  of  climate,  age,  sex,  nationality, 
or  employment.  They  felt  that  the  only  distinctions 
recognised  in  Christ's  kingdom  were  spiritual  distinc- 
tions, and  therefore  they  recognised  the  soul  of  good- 
ness wherever  found.  They  welcomed  the  honest  and 
true  heart,  no  matter  beneath  what  skin  it  beat,  and 
found  therefore  in  many  of  these  Roman  soldiers  some 
of  the  ablest,  the  most  devoted,  and  the  most  effective 
servants  and  teachers  of  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Verily  the  universal  and  catholic  principles  of  the 
new  religion  which  found  their  first  formal  proclama- 
tion in  the  age  of  Cornelius  met  with  an  ample  vindi- 
cation and  a  full  reward  in  the  trophies  won  and  the 
converts  gained  from  such  an  unpromising  source  as 
the  ranks  of  the  Roman  army.  This  seems  to  me  one 
reason  for  the  favourable  notices  of  the  Roman  soldiers 
in  the  New  Testament.  The  Divine  Spirit  wished  to 
impress  upon  mankind  that  birth,  position,  or  employ- 
ment have  no  influence  upon  a  man's  state  in  God's 
eight,  and  to  prove  by  a  number  of  typical  examples 
that  spiritual  conditions  and  excellence  alone  avail  to 
find  favour  with  the  Almighty. 

Another  reason,  however,  may  be  found  for  this  fact. 
The  Scriptures  never  make  light  of  discipline  or  train- 
ing. "Train  up  a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go"  is 
a  Divine  precept.  St.  Paul,  in  his  Pastoral  Epistles, 
lays  down  as  one  great  qualification  for  a  bishop  that 
he  should  have  this  power  of  exercising  discipline  and 
rule  at  home  as  well  as  abroad  :  "  For  if  he  knoweth 
not  how  to  rule  his  own  house,  how  shall  he  take  care 
of  the  Church  of  God  ?  "  (i  Tim.  iii.  5).  By  discipline, 
the  discipline   of  Egypt  and  the  wilderness,  did  God 


io8  THE  ACTS   OF   THE  APOSTLES. 

prepare  His  people  for  Canaan.  By  the  discipline  of 
captivity  and  dispersion,  by  the  discipline  of  Greek 
philosophy  spreading  novel  intellectual  ideas,  by  the 
discipline  of  Roman  dominion  executing  mighty  public 
vi^orks,  carrying  roads  and  intercommunication  to  the 
remotest  and  most  barbarous  nations,  did  God  prepare 
the  world  for  the  revelation  of  His  Son.  By  the 
discipline  of  life,  by  joy  and  sorrow,  by  strife  and 
suffering,  by  parting  and  by  loss,  does  God  still  prepare 
His  faithful  ones  for  the  beatific  vision  of  eternal 
beauty,  for  the  rest  and  joy  of  everlasting  peace. 
And  discipline  worked  out  its  usual  results  on  these 
military  men,  even  though  it  was  only  an  imperfect  and 
pagan  discipline  which  these  Roman  soldiers  received. 
Let  us  note  carefully  how  this  was.  The  world  of 
unregenerate  man  at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  appearance 
had  become  utterly  selfish.  Discipline  of  every  kind 
had  been  flung  off.  Self-restraint  was  practically 
unknown,  and  the  devil  and  his  works  flourished  in 
every  circle,  bringing  forth  the  fruits  of  wickedness, 
uncleanness,  and  impurity  in  every  direction.  The 
army  was  the  only  place  or  region  where  in  those 
times  any  kind  of  discipline  or  self-restraint  was  prac- 
tised. For  no  army  can  permit — even  if  it  be  an 
army  of  atheists — profligacy  and  drunkenness  to  rage, 
flaunting  themselves  beneath  the  very  eye  of  the  sun. 
And  as  the  spiritual  result  we  find  that  this  small 
measure  of  pagan  discipline  acted  as  a  preparation  for 
Christianity,  and  became  under  the  Divine  guidance 
the  means  of  fitting  men  like  Cornelius  of  Caesarea 
for  the  reception  of  the  gospel  message  of  purity  and 
peace.^ 

'   "The  Roman  camps  were  also  the  best  training-schools  for  the 
old-fashioned  virtues  of  faitlifulness,  straightforwardness,  and  hardihood ; 


x.  1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT.  io£) 

But  we  observe  that  Cornelius  the  centurion  had 
one  special  feature  which  made  him  peculiarly  fitted  to 
be  God's  instrument  for  opening  the  Christian  faith  to 
the  Gentile  world.  The  choice  of  Cornelius  is  marked 
by  all  that  skill  and  prudence,  that  careful  adapta- 
tion of  means  to  ends  which  the  Divine  workmanship, 
whether  in  nature  or  in  grace,  ever  displays.  There 
were  many  Roman  centurions  stationed  at  Caesarea, 
yet  none  was  chosen  save  Cornelius,  and  jthat  because 
he  was  "  a  devout  man  who  feared  God  with  all  his 
house,  praying  to  God  always,  and  giving  much  alms 
to  the  people."  He  feared  Jehovah,  he  fasted,  prayed, 
observed  Jewish  hours  of  devotion.  His  habits  were 
much  more  those  of  a  devout  Jew  than  of  a  pagan 
soldier.  He  was  popular  with  the  Jewish  people 
therefore,  like  another  centurion  of  whom  it  was  said 
by  the  Jewish  officials  themselves  "he  loveth  our 
nation  and  hath  built  us  a  synagogue."  The  selection 
of  Cornelius  as  the  leader  and  firstfruits  of  the  Gentiles 
unto  God  was  eminently  prudent  and  wise.  God  when 
He  is  working  out  His  plans  chooses  His  instruments 
carefully  and  skilfully.  He  leaves  nothing  to  chance. 
He  does  nothing  imperfectly.  Work  done  by  God  will 
repay  the  keenest  scrutiny,  the  closest  study,  for  it  is 
the  model  of  what  every  man's  work  in  life  ought  as 
far  as  possible  to  be — earnest,  wise,  complete,  perfect. 

and  in  them  were  to  be  found  the  best  types  of  the  old  Roman  character, 
which,  as  moralists  complained,  were  to  be  found  elsewhere  no  more. 
If  the  funds  of  a  country  town  had  fallen  into  disorder,  or  uprightness 
was  needed  for  a  special  post,  the  curator  chosen  by  the  Government 
was  often  an  old  soldier,  who  had  long  been  tried  and  trusted ;  and 
early  Christian  history  throws,  incidentally,  a  favourable  light  upon  the 
moral  qualities  of  the  Roman  officer.  These  qualities  were  mainly 
formed  by  thoroughness  of  work  and  discipline." — W.  W.  Capes,  TAe 
Early  Empire,  p.  210, 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


IV.  Again,  looking  at  the  whole  passage  we  perceive 
therein    illustrations    of    two    important    laws    of    the 
Divine  life.     We  recognise  in    the  case  of  Cornelius 
the  working  of  that  great  principle  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  often  enunciated  by  the  great   Master  :  "  To  him 
that    hath    shall  be    given,  and    he    shall    have   more 
abundantly,"  "  If  any  man  will  do   His  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine  " ;  or,  to  put  it  in  other  language, 
that  God  always  bestows  more  grace  upon  the  man 
who  diligently  uses  and  improves  the  grace  which  he 
already  possesses ;  a   principle   which   indeed  we  see 
constantly   exemplified    in    things    pertaining    to    this 
world  as  well  as  in  matters  belong  ng  to  the  spiritual 
life.     Thus  it  was  with  Cornelius.     He  was  what  was 
called  among  the  Jews  a  proselyte  of  the  gate.     These 
proselytes   were  very  numerous.     They   were  a  kind 
of  fringe   hanging  upon   the  outskirts   of   the   Jewish 
people.    They  were  admirers  of  Jewish  ideas,  doctrines, 
and  practices,  but  they  were  not  incorporated  with  the 
Jewish   nation  nor  bound  by  all  their  laws  and  cere- 
monial restraints.     The  Levitical  Law  was  not  imposed 
upon  them  because  they  were  not  circumcised.     They 
were  merely  bound  to  worship  the  true  God  and  observe 
certain  moral  precepts  said  to  have  been  delivered  to 
Noah.^     Such  was  Cornelius  whom  the  providence  of 
God    had    led    from    Italy    to    Caesarea    for    this    very 
purpose,  to  fulfil  His  purposes  of  mercy  towards  the 
Gentile   world.     His   residence  there  had   taught  him 
the  truth  and  beauty  of  the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah 
rendered  by  the  Jews.     He  had  learned  too,  not  only 
that  God  is,  but  that  He  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that 
diligently  seek  Him.     Cornelius  had  set  himself,  there- 

'  See  the  article  on  "  Proselytes  "  in  Schaft's  Encydopcedia  of  Theology. 


1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE    CONVERT. 


fore,  to  the  diligent  discharge  of  all  the  duties  of  religion 
so  far  as  he  knew  them.  He  was  earnest  and  diligent 
in  prayer,  for  he  recognised  himself  as  dependent  upon 
an  invisible  God.  He  was  liberal  in  alms,  for  he  desired 
to  show  fo)  th  his  gratitude,  for  mercies  daily  received. 
And  acting  ticus  he  met  with  the  divinely  appointed 
reward.  Cornelius  is  favoured  with  a  fuller  revelation 
and  a  clearer  guidance  by  the  angel's  mouth,  who  tells 
him  to  send  and  summon  Peter  from  Joppa  for  this 
very  purpose.  What  an  eminently  practical  lesson  we 
may  learn  from  God's  dealings  with  this  earliest  Gentile 
convert !  We  learn  from  the  Divine  dealings  with 
Cornelius  that  whosoever  dihgently  improves  the  lower 
spiritual  advantages  which  he  possesses  shall  soon  be 
admitted  to  higher  and  fuller  blessings. 

It  may  well  have  been  that  God  led  him  through  suc- 
cessive stages  and  rewarded  him  under  each.  In  distant 
Italy,  when  residing  amid  the  abounding  superstitions 
of  that  country,  conscience  was  the  only  preacher,  but 
there  the  sermons  of  that  monitor  were  heard  with 
reverence  and  obeyed  with  diligence.  Then  God 
ordered  the  course  of  his  life  so  that  public  duty 
summoned  him  to  a  distant  land.  Cornelius  may  have 
at  the  time  counted  his  lot  a  hard  one  when  despatched 
to  Palestine  as  a  centurion,  for  it  was  a  province  where, 
from  the  nature  of  the  warfare  there  prevalent,  there 
w^ere  abundant  opportunities  of  death  by  assassination 
at  the  hands  of  the  Zealots,  and  but  few  opportunities 
of  distinction  such  as  might  be  gained  in  border  war- 
fare with  foreign  enemies.  But  the  Lord  was  shaping 
his  career,  as  He  shapes  all  our  careers,  with  reference 
ta-our  highest  spiritual  purposes.  He  led  Cornelius, 
therefore,  to  a  land  and  to  a  town  where  the  pure 
worship  of  Jehovah  was    practised  and    the   elevated 


112  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


morality  of  Judaism  prevailed.  Here,  then,  were  new 
opportunities  placed  within  the  centurion's  reach.  And 
again  the  same  spiritual  diligence  is  displayed,  and 
again  the  same  law  of  spiritual  development  and  en- 
larging blessing  finds  a  place.  Cornelius  is  devout  and 
liberal  and  God-fearing,  and  therefore  a  heavenly 
visitor  directs  his  way  to  still  fuller  light  and  grander 
revelations,  and  Cornelius  the  centurion  of  the  Italian 
band  leads  the  Gentile  hosts  into  the  fulness  of  blessing, 
the  true  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  found  only 
in  the  dispensation  of  Jesus  Christ  and  within  the 
borders  of  the  Church  of  God.  This  was  God's  course 
of  deahng  with  the  Roman  centurion,  and  it  is  the  course 
which  the  same  loving  dealings  still  pursues  with  human 
souls  truly  desirous  of  Divine  guidance.  The  Lord 
imparts  one  degree  of  light  and  knowledge  and  grace, 
but  withholds  higher  degrees  till  full  use  has  been 
made  of  the  lower.  He  speaks  to  us  at  first  in  a 
whisper ;  but  if  we  reverently  hearken,  there  is  a 
gradual  deepening  of  the  voice,  till  it  is  as  audible  in 
the  crowd  as  it  is  in  the  solitude,  and  we  are  continually 
visited  with  the  messages  of  the  Eternal  King. 

Now  cannot  these  ideas  be  easily  applied  to  our  own 
individual  cases  ?  A  young  man,  for  instance,  may  be 
troubled  with  doubts  and  questions  concerning  certain 
portions  of  the  Christian  faith.  Some  persons  make 
such  doubts  an  excuse  for  plunging  into  scenes  of  riot 
and  dissipation,  quenching  the  light  which  God  has 
given  them  and  making  certain  their  own  spiritual 
destruction.  The  case  of  Cornelius  points  out  the  true 
course  which  should  in  such  a  case  be  adopted. 
Men  may  be  troubled  with  doubts  concerning  certain 
doctrines  of  revelation.  But  they  have  no  doubt  as  to 
the  dictates  of  conscience  and  the  light  which  natural 


1-6.]  THE  FIRST  GENTILE   CONVERT. 


religion  sheds  upon  the  paths  of  morals  and  of  life. 
Let  them  then  use  the  light  they  have.  Let  them 
diligently  practise  the  will  of  God  as  it  has  been 
revealed.  Let  them  be  earnest  in  prayer,  pure  and 
reverent  in  life,  honest  and  upright  in  business,  and 
then  in  God's  own  time  the  doubts  will  vanish,  the 
darkness  will  clear  away,  and  the  ancient  promises  will 
be  fulfilled,  "Light  is  sown  for  the  righteous,"  "  The 
path  of  the  just  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day,"  "  In  the  way  of  righteousness  is  life,  and  in  the 
pathway  thereof  there  is  no  death." 

But  the  example  of  Cornelius  is  of  still  wider 
application.  The  position  of  Cornehus  was  not  a 
favourable  one  for  the  development  of  the  religious 
'life,  and  yet  he  rose  superior  to  all  its  difficulties,  and 
became  thus  an  eminent  example  to  all  believers.  Men 
may  complain  that  they  have  but  few  spiritual  advan- 
tages, and  that  their  station  in  life  is  thickly  strewn 
with  difficulties,  hindering  the  practices  and  duties  of 
religion.  To  such  persons  we  would  say,  compare 
yourselves  with  Cornelius  and  the  difficulties  external 
and  internal  he  had  to  overcome.  Servants,  for  instance, 
may  labour  under  great  apparent  disadvantages.  Per- 
haps, if  living  in  an  irreligious  family,  they  have  few 
opportunities  for  prayer,  public  or  private.  Men  of 
business  are  compelled  to  spend  days  and  nights  in 
the  management  of  their  affairs.  Persons  of  com- 
manding intellect  or  of  high  station  have  their  own 
disadvantages,  their  own  peculiar  temptations,  growing 
out  of  their  very  prosperity.  The  case  of  Cornelius 
shows  that  each  class  can  rise  superior  to  their  peculiar 
difficulties  and  grow  in  the  hidden  life  of  the  soul,  if 
they  but  imitate  his  example  as  he  grew  from  grace 
to  grace,  improving  his  scanty  store  till  it  grew  into  a 

VOL.  ir,  8 


114  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

fuller  and  ampler  one,  till  it  expanded  into  all  the  glory 
of  Christian  privilege,  when  Cornelius,  like  Peter,  was 
enabled  to  rejoice  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  a  risen 
and  glorified  Redeemer.^ 

'  I  owe  a  great  many  of  the  devout  thoughts  dealing  with  the  latter 
portion  of  this  subject  to  a  volume  of  sermons  preached  by  the  celebrated 
Golden  Lecturer,  the  eloquent  Henry  Melville,  styled  Voices  of  the 
Christian  Year.  Melville  is  now  as  a  preacher  quite  forgotten,  and  yet 
he  deserves  to  be  gratefully  remembered,  for  he  was  the  first  of  the  old 
Evangelical  school  to  break  through  the  traditional  repetition  of  common- 
places which  formed  the  main  part  of  the  preaching  of  the  leading 
popular  orators  of  fifty  years  ago.  From  a  preacher's  point  of  view  his 
sermons  will  still  repay  study.  His  sermons,  for  instance,  on  the  less 
known  characters  of  Scripture,  will  teach  a  young  divine  how  to  extract 
edification  and  instruction  out  of  most  unpromising  materials,  and  to 
apply  the  essential  principles  of  the  Bible  to  the  changed  circumstances 
of  modern  life.  And  assuredly  this  is  the  real  object  of  a  pastor's 
preaching  in  a  Christian  congregation,  not  the  mere  repetition  of  the 
first  elements  of  Christianity,  but  an  application  of  its  great  principles, 
first  proclaimed  in  the  language  of  the  East,  to  the  actions  and  lives  of 
the  men  of  the  West.  Preaching  of  that  kind  need  never  be  dull  and 
uninteresting. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA. 

"Now  on  the  morrow,  as  they  were  on  their  journey,  and  drew  nigh 
unto  the  city,  Peter  went  up  upon  the  housetop  to  pray,  about  the  sixth 
hour  :  and  he  became  hungry,  and  desired  to  eat :  but  while  they  made 
ready,  he  fell  into  a  trance ;  and  he  beholdeth  the  heaven  opened,  and 
a  certain  vessel  descending,  as  it  were  a  great  sheet,  let  down  by  four 
corners  upon  the  earth  :  wherein  were  all  manner  of  fourfooted  beasts 
and  creeping  things  of  the  earth  and  fowls  of  the  heaven.  And  there 
came  a  voice  to  him.  Rise,  Peter ;  kill  and  eat.  But  Peter  said,  Not  so, 
Lord ;  for  I  have  never  eaten  anything  that  is  common  and  unclean. 
And  a  voice  came  unto  him  again  the  second  time.  What  God  hath 
cleansed,  make  not  thou  common." — Acts  x.  9-15. 

^^HERE  are  two  central  figures  in  the  conversion 
of  Cornelius.  The  one  is  the  centurion  himself, 
the  other  is  St.  Peter,  the  selected  and  predestined 
agent  in  that  great  work.  We  have  studied  Cornelius 
in  the  last  chapter,  and  have  seen  the  typical  character 
of  all  his  circumstances.  His  time,  his  residence,  his 
training,  had  all  been  providential,  indicating  to  us  the 
careful  superintendence,  the  watchful  oversight,  which 
God  bestows  upon  the  history  of  individuals  as  well  as 
of  the  Church  at  large.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  other 
figure,  St.  Peter,  and  see  if  the  Lord's  providence  may 
not  be  traced  with  equal  clearness  in  the  circumstances 
of  his  case  also.  We  have  found  Cornelius  at  Caesarea, 
the  great  Roman  port  and  garrison  of  Palestine,  a  very 
fitting  and  natural  place  for  a  Roman  centurion  to  be 

"5 


ii6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

located.  We  find  Peter  at  this  very  same  time  at 
Joppa,  a  spot  that  was  consecrated  by  many  a  memory 
and  specially  associated  with  a  mission  to  the  Gentiles 
in  the  times  of  the  Elder  Dispensation.  Here  we  trace 
the  hand  of  the  Lord  providentially  ruling  the  footsteps 
of  Peter  though  he  knew  it  not,  and  leading  him,  as 
Philip  was  led  a  short  time  before,  to  the  spot  where 
his  intended  work  lay.  The  sickness  and  death  of 
Tabitha  or  Dorcas  led  St.  Peter  to  Joppa.  The  fame 
of  his  miracle  upon  that  devout  woman  led  to  the  con- 
version of  many  souls,  and  this  naturally  induced  Peter 
to  make  a  longer  stay  in  Joppa  at  the  house  of  Simon 
the  tanner.  How  natural  and  unpremeditated,  how 
very  ordinary  and  unplanned  to  the  natural  eye  seem 
the  movements  of  St.  Peter  !  So  they  would  have 
seemed  to  us  had  we  been  living  at  Joppa,  and  yet  now 
we  can  see  with  the  light  which  the  sacred  narrative 
throws  upon  the  story  that  the  Lord  was  guiding  St. 
Peter  to  the  place  where  his  work  was  cut  out  when 
the  appointed  time  should  come.  Surely  the  history 
of  Peter  and  his  actions  have  abundant  comfort  and 
sustaining  hope  for  ourselves  !  Our  lives  may  be  very 
ordinary  and  commonplace  ;  the  events  may  succeed  one 
another  in  the  most  matter-of-fact  style ;  there  may 
seem  in  them  nothing  at  all  worthy  the  attention  of  a 
Divine  Ruler ;  and  yet  those  ordinary  lives  are  just  as 
much  planned  and  guided  by  supernatural  wisdom  as 
the  careers  of  men  concerning  whom  all  the  world  is 
talking.  Only  let  us  take  care  to  follow  St.  Peter's 
example.  He  yielded  himself  completely  to  the  Divine 
guidance,  trusted  himself  entirely  to  Divine  love  and 
wisdom,  and  then  found  in  such  trust  not  only  life  and 
safety,  but  what  is  far  better,  perfect  peace  and  sweetest 
calm. 


X.9-I5-]         THE  PE TRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  117 

There  is  something  very  restful  in  the  picture  drawn 
for  us  of  St.  Peter  at  this  crisis.  There  is  none 
of  that  feverish  hurry  and  restlessness  which  make 
some  good  men  and  their  methods  very  trying  to  others. 
The  notices  of  him  have  all  an  air  of  repose  and 
Christian  dignity.  "  As  Peter  went  throughout  all  parts, 
he  came  down  also  to  the  saints  which  dwelt  at 
Lydda "  ;  "  Peter  put  them  all  forth  and  prayed "  ; 
"  Peter  abode  many  days  in  Joppa  "  ;  "  Peter  went  up 
upon  the  housetop  to  pray  about  the  sixth  hour."  St. 
Peter,  indeed,  did  not  live  in  an  age  of  telegrams  and 
postcards  and  express  trains,  which  all  contribute  more 
or  less  to  that  feverish  activity  and  restlessness  so 
characteristic  of  this  age.  But  even  if  he  had  lived  in 
such  a  time,  I  am  sure  his  faith  in  God  would  have 
saved  him  from  that  fussiness,  that  life  of  perpetual 
hurry,  yet  never  bringing  forth  any  abiding  fruit, 
which  we  behold  in  so  many  moderns.  This  results 
a  good  deal,  I  believe,  from  the  development — I  was 
almost  going  to  say  the  tyranny,  the  unwitting  tyranny 
of  modern  journalism,  which  compels  men  to  live  so 
much  in  public  and  reports  their  every  utterance. 
There  are  men  never  tired  of  running  from  one  com- 
mittee to  another,  and  never  weary  of  seeing  their 
names  in  the  morning  papers.  They  count  that  they 
have  been  busily  and  usefully  employed  if  their  names 
are  perpetually  appearing  in  newspaper  reports  as 
speaking,  or  at  any  rate  being  present  at  innumerable 
meetings,  leaving  themselves  no  time  for  that  quiet 
meditation  whereby  St.  Peter  gained  closest  communion 
with  heaven.  It  is  no  wonder  such  men's  fussiness 
should  be  fruitless,  because  their  natures  are  poor, 
shallow,  uncultivated,  where  the  seed  springs  up  rapidly 
but  brings  forth  no  fruit  to  perfection,  because  it  has  no 


ii8  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

deepness  of  earth.  It  is  no  wonder  that  St.  Peter  should 
have  spoken  with  power  at  Caesarea  and  been  successful 
in  opening  the  door  of  faith  to  the  Gentiles,  because  he 
prepared  himself  for  doing  the  Divine  work  by  the 
discipline  of  meditation  and  thought  and  spiritual 
converse  with  his  Risen  Lord.  And  here  we  may 
remark,  before  we  pass  from  this  point,  that  the  con- 
version of  the  first  Gentile  and  the  full  and  complete 
exercise  of  the  power  of  the  keys  committed  to  St. 
Peter  run  on  lines  very  parallel  to  those  pertaining  to 
the  Day  of  Pentecost  and  the  conversion  of  the  earliest 
Jews  in  one  respect  at  least.  The  Day  of  Pentecost 
was  preceded  by  a  period  of  ten  days'  waiting  and 
spiritual  repose.  The  conversion  of  Cornelius  and  the 
revelation  of  God's  purposes  to  St.  Peter  were  preceded 
by  a  season  of  meditation  and  prayer,  when  an  apostle 
could  find  time  amid  all  his  pressing  cares  to  seek  the 
housetop  for  midday  prayer  and  to  abide  many  days  in 
the  house  of  one  Simon  a  tanner,  A  period  of  pause, 
repose,  and  quietness  preceded  a  new  onward  movement 
of  development  and  of  action. 

I.  Now,  as  in  the  case  of  Cornelius,  so  in  the  case  of 
St.  Peter,  we  note  the  place  where  the  chief  actor  in  the 
scene  abode.  It  was  at  Joppa,  and  Joppa  was  associated 
with  many  memories  for  the  Jews.  It  has  been  from 
ancient  times  the  port  of  Jerusalem,  and  is  even  now 
rising  into  somewhat  of  its  former  commercial  greatness, 
specially  owing  to  the  late  development  of  the  orange 
trade,  for  the  production  of  which  fruit  Jaffa  or  Joppa  has 
become  famous.  Three  thousand  years  ago  Joppa  was 
a  favourite  resort  of  the  Phenician  fleets,  which  brought 
the  cedars  of  Lebanon  to  King  Solomon  for  the  build- 
ing of  the  temple  (2  Chron.  ii.  16).  At  a  later  period, 
when  God  would  send  Jonah  on  a  mission  to  Gentile 


X.  9-IS-]         THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  119 

Nineveh,  and  when  Jonah  desired  to  thwart  God's 
merciful  designs  towards  the  outer  world,  the  prophet 
fled  to  Joppa  and  there  took  ship  in  his  vain  effort 
to  escape  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  And  now 
again  Joppa  becomes  the  refuge  of  another  prophet, 
who  feels  the  same  natural  hesitation  about  admitting 
the  Gentiles  to  God's  mercy,  but  who,  unlike  Jonah, 
yields  immediate  assent  to  the  heavenly  message,  and 
finds  peace  and  blessing  in  the  paths  of  loving  obedi- 
ence. The  very  house  where  St.  Peter  abode  is  still 
pointed  out.^  It  is  situated  in  the  south-western  part 
of  the  town,  and  commands  a  view  over  the  bay  of 
Joppa  and  the  waters  of  that  Mediterranean  Sea  which 
was  soon  to  be  the  channel  of  communication  whereby 
the  gospel  message  should  be  borne  to  the  nations  of 
the  distant  West.  We  remark,  too,  that  it  was  with 
Simon  the  tanner  of  Joppa  that  St.  Peter  was  staying. 
When  a  great  change  is  impending  various  little 
circumstances    occur    all    showing    the    tendencies    of 


'  The  house  of  Simon  tae  tanner  is  depicted  in  Lewin's  St.  Paul, 
vol.  i.,  pp.  87,  88.  There  is  a  good  description  of  it,  as  also  of  Joppa 
at  large,  in  Geikie's  The  Holy  Land  and  the  Bible,  vol.  i.,  p.  18,  from 
which  we  take  the  following  :  "  On  the  south  side  of  the  town,  at  the 
edge  of  the  sea,  close  to  the  lighthouse,  one  is  reminded  of  the  visit  of 
St.  Peter  to  Joppa  by  the  claim  of  a  paltry  mosque  to  occupy  the  house 
of  Simon  the  tanner.  The  present  building  is  comparatively  modern, 
and  cannot  be  the  actual  structure  in  which  the  Apostle  lodged.  It  is, 
however,  regarded  by  the  Mohammedans  as  saci^ed,  one  of  the  rooms 
being  used  as  a  place  of  prayer  in  commemoration,  we  are  told,  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  having  once  asked  God,  while  here,  for  a  meal  ;  on 
which  a  table  forthwith  came  down  from  heaven.  Strange  variation 
of  the  story  of  St.  Peter's  vision  !  The  waves  beat  against  the  low 
wall  of  the  courtyard,  so  that,  like  the  actual  house  of  Simon,  it  is 
close  on  the  sea-shore.  Tanning,  moreover,  in  accordance  with  the 
unchanging  character  of  the  East,  is  still  extensively  carried  on  in  this 
part  of  the  town." 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


the  age.  By  themselves  and  taken  one  by  one  they 
do  not  express  much.  At  the  time  when  they 
happen  men  do  not  regard  them  or  understand  their 
meaning,  but  afterwards,  and  reading  them  in  the  light 
of  accomplished  facts,  men  behold  their  significance. 
Thus  it  was  with  Simon  Peter  and  his  visit  to  Simon 
the  tanner  of  Joppa.  Tanners  as  a  class  were  despised 
and  comparatively  outcast  among  the  Jews.  Tanning 
was  counted  an  unclean  trade  because  of  the  necessary 
contact  with  dead  bodies  which  it  involved.  A  tan- 
yard  must,  according  to  Jewish  law,  be  separated  by 
fifty  yards  at  least  from  human  dwellings.  If  a  man 
married  a  woman  without  informing  her  of  his  trade 
as  a  tanner,  she  was  granted  a  divorce.  The  whole 
trade  of  tanners  was  under  a  ban,  and  3'et  it  was  to  a 
tanner's  house  that  the  Apostle  made  his  way,  and 
there  he  lodged  for  many  days,  showing  that  the  mind 
even  of  St.  Peter  was  steadily  rising  above  narrow 
Jewish  prejudices  into  that  higher  and  nobler  atmo- 
sphere where  he  learned  in  fullest  degree  that  no  man 
and  no  lawful  trade  is  to  be  counted  common  or 
unclean. 

II.  We  note,  again,  the  time  when  the  vision  was 
granted  to  St.  Peter  and  the  mind  of  the  Lord  was  more 
fully  disclosed  to  him.  Joppa  is  separated  from  Caesarea 
by  a  distance  of  thirty  miles.  The  leading  coast  towns 
were  then  connected  by  an  excellent  road,  along  which 
horses  and  vehicles  passed  with  ease.  The  centurion 
Cornelius,  when  he  received  the  angelic  direction,  forth- 
with despatched  two  of  his  household  servants  and 
a  devout  soldier  to  summon  St.  Peter  to  his  presence. 
They  doubtless  travelled  on  horseback,  leading  spare 
beasts  for  the  accommodation  of  the  Apostle.  Less 
than    twenty-four   hours    after    their    departure    from 


x.g.15.]         THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  121 

Caesarea  they  drew  nigh  to  Joppa,  and  then  it  was  that 
God  revealed  His  purposes  to  His  beloved  servant. 
The  very  hour  can  be  fixed.  Cornelius  saw  the  angel 
at  the  ninth  hour,  when,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  "  he  was 
keeping  the  hour  of  prayer "  (x.  30).  Peter  saw  the 
vision  at  the  sixth  hour,  when  he  went  up  on  the  house 
top  to  pray,  according  to  the  example  of  the  Psalmist 
when  he  sang,  "  In  the  evening  and  morning  and  at 
noon-day  will  I  pray,  and  that  instantly."  ^  St.  Peter 
evidently  was  a  careful  observer  of  all  the  forms  amid 
which  his  youthful  training  had  been  conducted.  He 
did  not  seek  in  the  name  of  spiritual  religion  to  discard 
these  old  forms.  He  recognised  the  danger  of  any  such 
course.  Forms  may  often  tend  to  formalism  On  account 
of  the  weakness  of  human  nature.  But  they  also  help 
to  preserve  and  guard  the  spirit  of  ancient  institutions 
in  times  of  sloth  and  decay,  till  the  Spirit  from  on  high 
again  breathes  upon  the  dry  bones  and  imparts  fresh 
life.  St.  Peter  used  the  forms  of  Jewish  externalism, 
imparting  to  them  some  of  his  own  intense  earnestness, 
and  the  Lord  set  His  seal  of  approval  upon  his  action 
by  revealing  the  purposes  of  His  mercy  and  love  to 
the  Gentile  world  at  the  noontide  hour  of  prayer.  The 
wisest  masters  of  the  spiritual  life  have  ever  followed 
St.  Peter's  teaching.  We  may  take,  for  instance.  Dr. 
Goulburn  in  his  valuable  treatise  on  Personal  Religion. 
In  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  fourth  part  of  that  work  he 
has  some  wise  thoughts  on  living  by  rule  in  the  Christian 
life,  where  he  points  out  the  use  of  rules  and  their 
abuse,  strongly  urging  upon  those  who  desire  to  grow  in 
grace  the  formation  of  rules  by  which  the  practices 
of  religion  and  the  soul's  inner  life  may  be   directed 

'  This  is  the  rendering  of  Psahn  Iv.  18  according  to  the  version  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


THE   ACTS.  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


and  shielded.  There  is,  for  instance,  no  law  of  Christ 
which  ties  men  down  to  morning  and  evening  prayer. 
Yet  does  not  our  own  daily  experience  teach  that,  if  this 
unwritten  rule  of  the  Christian  life  be  relaxed  under  the 
pretence  of  higher  spirituality,  and  men  pray  only  when 
they  feel  specially  inclined  to  communion  with  the 
unseen,  the  whole  practice  of  private  as  well  as  of 
public  prayer  ceases,  and  the  soul  lives  in  an  atheistic 
atmosphere  without  any  recognition  or  thought  of 
God.^  This  danger  has  been  recognised  from  the 
>  earliest  times.  Tertullian  was  a  man  of  narrow  views, 
^  but  of  the  most  intense  piety.  He  was  a  devout  student 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  a  careful  observer  of  the 
example  of  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles.  The  early 
Christians  adopted  from  the  Jews  the  custom  of  prayer 
at  the  various  hours  of  the  day,  and  turned  it  into  a 
practical  rule  of  Christian  discipline,  acknowledging  at 
the  same  time  that  there  was  no  Scriptural  obligation 
in  the  rule,  but  that  it  was  a  mere  wise  advice  for  the 
development  of  the  spiritual  life.  This  was  the  origin  of 
what  is  technically  called  the  Canonical  Hours,  Matins 

'  A  deceased  friend  of  mine,  a  well-known  member  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  once  remarked  to  me  about  this  very  point  that  his  Society,  to 
which  he  belonged  to  his  dying  day,  while  aiming  at  the  highest 
spirituality,  in  its  neglect  of  all  rules,  and  suitable  therefore  for  persons 
of  specially  exalted  tone,  had  rendered  itself  unfitted  for  the  ti-aining  of 
children.  Children  cannot  be  trained  without  rules,  and  a  society  which 
trusts  to  educate  them  in  things  religious  without  fixed  and  definite 
training  must  be  a  hopeless  failure.  The  original  principles  of 
"Friends"  preclude  them  from  teaching  children  forms  of  private 
prayer,  from  using  fixed  Bible  reading  and  regular  religious  instruction, 
as  well  as  from  stated  family  worship.  Efforts  have  been  made  in 
later  times  to  remedy  this  effect,  but  they  are  merely  confessions  of  the 
failure  of  the  principles  inculcated  by  George  Fox  and  Robert  Barclay 
and  acknowledgments  that  the  Church  from  which  they  dissented  was 
right. 


X.9-I5]         THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  123 

wtih  Lauds,  Prime,  Tierce,  Sext,  Nones,  Evensong,  and 
Compline,  which  can  be  traced  back  in  germ  to  the  age 
next  after  the  Apostles,  and  were  originally  grounded 
upon  the  example  of  the  Apostles  themselves,  and 
specially  upon  that  of  St.  Peter's  practice  at  Joppa. 
Let  us  hear  Tertullian  on  this  matter.  He  wrote  a 
treatise  on  prayer,  in  which  he  presses  upon  the  men 
of  his  time  the  duty  of  earnestness  and  intensity  in  that 
holy  exercise,  and  when  doing  so  touches  upon  this  very 
point :  "As  respecting  the  time  of  prayer  the  observance 
of  certain  hours  will  not  be  unprofitable — those  common 
hours  I  mean  which  mark  the  intervals  of  the  day — the 
third,  sixth,  ninth — which  we  find  in  Scripture  to  have 
been  made  more  solemn  than  the  rest.  The  first  in- 
fusion of  the  Holy  Spirit  into  the  congregated  disciples 
took  place  at  the  third  hour.  Peter  saw  his  vision  on  the 
housetop  at  the  sixth  hour.  Peter  and  John  went  into 
the  Temple  at  the  ninth  hour  when  he  restored  the 
paralytic  to  his  health."  Tertullian  then  adds  the  follow- 
ing wise  observations,  showing  that  he  quite  grasped  the 
essential  distinction  between  the  slavery  of  the  law  and 
the  freedom  of  the  gospel  in  the  matter  of  external  obser- 
vances :  "  Albeit  these  practices  stand  simply  without 
any  Divine  precept  for  their  observance  ;  still  it  may  be 
granted  a  good  thing  to  establish  some  definite  rule 
which  may  both  add  stringency  to  the  admonition  to 
pray  and  may  as  it  were  by  a  law  tear  us  out  of  our 
ordinary  business  unto  such  a  duty.  So  that  we  pray 
not  less  than  thrice  in  the  day,  debtors  as  we  are  to 
Three — Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit — besides  of  course 
our  regular  prayers  on  the  entrance  of  light  and  of 
night."  The  ecclesiastical  practice  of  the  Hours  may 
be  turned  into  a  mere  formal  repetition  of  certain 
prescribed  tasks ;  but,  like  all  other  ordinances  which 


124  THE   ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

trace  themselves  back  to  primitive  Christianity,  the 
Hours  are  based  on  a  true  conception  and  a  noble  ideal 
of  the  prevailing  and  abounding  place  which  prayer 
should  occupy  in  the  soul's  life,  according  to  the 
Saviour's  own  teaching  when  He  spake  a  parable  to 
His  disciples  to  this  end  that  men  ought  always  to  pray 
and  not  to  faint.^ 

III.  We  now  arrive  at  the  vision  which  Peter  saw 
upon  the  housetop.  The  Apostle,  having  ascended 
upon  the  housetop  commanding  a  view  over  the  blue 
waters  of  the  Mediterranean  lying  shimmering  and 
sweltering  beneath  the  rays  of  the  noonday  sun,  became 
hungry,  as  was  natural  enough,  because  the  usual  time 
of  the  midday  meal  was  drawing  nigh.  But  there  was 
a  deeper  reason  for  the  Apostle's  felt  need  of  refresh- 
ment, and  a  more  immediate  providence  was  watching 
over  his  natural  powers  and  their  action  than  ever  before 
had  been  revealed.  The  natural  hunger  was  divinely 
inspired  in  order  that  just  at  that  instant  when  the  re- 
presentatives and  delegates  of  the  Gentile  world  were 
drawing  nigh  to  his  abode  he  might  be  prepared  to  accord 
them  a  fitting  reception.  To  the  mere  man  of  sense  or 
to  the  mere  carnal  mind  the  hunger  of  St.  Peter  may 
seem  a  simple  natural  operation,  but  to  the  devout 
believer  in  Christianity,  who  views  it  as  the  great  and 
perfect  revelation  of  God  to  man,  who  knows  that  His 
covenants  are  in  all  things  well-ordered  and  sure,  and 
that  in  His  works  in  grace  as  well  as  in  His  works  in 
nature  the  Lord  leaves  nothing  to  mere  chance,  but 
perfectly  orders  them  all  down  to  the  minutest  detail, 
to  such  an  one  this  human  hunger  of  St.  Peter's  appears 
as  divinely  planned  in  order  that  a  spiritual  satisfaction 

'  TeituUian's  treatise  on  Prayer  will  be  found  in  Clark's  translation 
of  his  works,  vol.  i.,  pp.  178-204. 


X.  9-15]         THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  125 

and  completeness  may  be  imparted  to  his  soul  uncon- 
sciously craving  after  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
will.     St.  Peter's  hunger  is,  in  fact,  but  a  manifestation 
in  the  human    sphere    of  that    superhuman    foresight 
which  was  directing  the  whole  transaction  from  behind 
this  visible  scene  ;  teaching  us,  in  fact,  the  lesson  so 
often  repeated  in  Holy  Scripture  that  nothing,  not  even 
our  feelings,  our  infirmities,  our  passions,  our  appetites, 
are    too    minute    for    the    Divine    love    and   care,   and 
encouraging  us  thereby  to   act   more  freely  upon  the 
apostolic    injunction,    "  In   everything    by   prayer   and 
supplication  let  your  requests  be  made  known  unto  God." 
If  St.  Peter's  hunger  were  taken  up  and  incorporated 
with  the  Divine  plan  of  salvation,  we  may  be  sure  that 
our  own  wants  and  trials  do  not  escape  the  omniscient 
eye  of  Him  who  plans  all  our  lives,  appointing  the  end 
from  the  very  beginning.     St.  Peter  was  hungry,  and  as 
food  was  preparing  he  fell  into  a  trance,  and  then  the 
vision  answering  in  its  form  to  the  hunger  which  he 
felt  was  granted.     Vain  questions  may  here  be  raised,  as 
we  noted  before  in  the  case  of  St.  Paul,  concerning  the 
trance  of  the  Apostle  and  the  communications  he  held 
with  the  unseen  world.     They  are  vain  questions  for  us 
to  raise  or  to  attempt  to  answer,  because  they  belong  to 
an  unexplored  land  full,  as  man}'  modern  experiments 
show,  of  strange  mysterious  facts  peculiar  to  it.     This 
alone  we  can  say,  some  communication  must  have  been 
made    to    St.    Peter  which   he    regarded    as  a    Divine 
revelation.     The  conversion  and  reception  by  St.  Peter 
of  the  Gentile  centurion  are  facts,  the  prejudices  of  St. 
Peter  against  such  a  reception  are  also  undoubted  facts. 
Hitherto  he  shared    the    opinion    common    to    all  the 
Twelve  that   such    a    reception    was    contrary    to    the 
Divine  law  and  purposes.     He  must  have  received  upon 


126  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  housetop  some  kind  of  a  heavenly  communication 
which  he  regarded  as  equivalent  in  authority  to  that 
ancient  rule  by  which  he  esteemed  the  promises  and 
mercy  of  God  limited  to  the  seed  of  Abraham.  But  as 
for  any  endeavour  to  understand  or  explain  the  mode 
of  God's  action  on  this  occasion,  it  will  be  just  as  vain 
as  attempts  to  pierce  the  mysteries  of  God's  action  in 
creation,  the  incarnation,  or,  to  come  lower  still,  in  the 
processes  by  which  life  has  been  communicated  to  this 
world  and  is  now  sustained  and  continued  thereon 
We  are  in  very  deed  living  and  moving  amid  mysteries, 
and  if  we  refuse  to  learn  or  meditate  till  the  mysteries 
we  meet  with,  the  very  first  step  we  take,  be  cleared,  we 
must  cease  to  think  and  be  content  to  pass  hfe  like  the 
beasts  that  perish.  We  know  not,  indeed,  the  exact 
manner  in  which  God  communicated  with  St.  Peter,  or 
for  that  matter  with  any  one  else  to  whom  He  made 
revelation  of  His  will.  We  know  nothing  of  the 
manner  in  which  He  spoke  to  Moses  out  of  the  bush, 
or  to  Samuel  in  the  night  season,  or  to  Isaiah  in  the 
Temple.  As  with  these  His  servants  of  the  Elder  Dis- 
pensation, so  it  was  with  St.  Peter  on  the  housetop. 
We  know,  however,  how  St.  Luke  received  his  informa- 
tion as  to  the  nature  of  the  vision  and  all  the  other 
facts  of.  the  case.  St.  Luke  and  St.  Peter  must  have 
had  many  an  opportunity  for  conversation  in  the  thrilling, 
all-important  events  amid  which  he  had  lived.  St. 
Luke  too  accompanied  St.  Paul  on  that  journey  to 
Jerusalem  described  in  the  twenty-first  chapter,  and 
was  introduced  to  the  Christian  Sanhedrin  or  Council 
over  which  St.  James  the  Just  presided.  But  even  it 
St.  Luke  had  never  seen  St.  Peter,  he  had  abundant 
opportunities  of  learning  all  about  the  vision.  St. 
Peter  proclaimed  it  to  the  world  from  the  very  time  it 


X.9-I5-]         THE  PETRINE   VISION  AT  J OPP A.  127 

happened,  and  was  obliged  to  proclaim  it  as  his  defence 
against  the  party  zealous  for  the  law  of  Moses.  St. 
Peter  referred  to  what  God  had  just  shown  him  as 
soon  as  he  came  into  the  centurion's  presence.  He 
described  the  vision  at  full  length  as  soon  as  he  came 
to  Jerusalem  and  met  the  assembled  Church,  where  its 
power  and  meaning  were  so  clearly  recognised  that  the 
mouths  of  all  St.  Peter's  adversaries  were  at  once 
stopped.  And  again  at  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  held, 
as  described  in  the  fifteenth  chapter,  St.  Peter  refers  to 
the  circumstances  of  this  whole  story  as  well  known  to 
the  whole  Church  in  that  city.  St.  Luke  then  would 
have  no  difficulty,  writing  some  twenty  years  later,  in 
ascertaining  the  facts  of  this  story,  and  naturally  enough, 
when  writing  to  a  Gentile  convert  and  having  in  mind 
the  needs  and  feelings  of  the  Gentiles,  he  inserted  the 
narrative  of  the  vision  as  being  the  foundation-stone  on 
which  the  growing  and  enlarging  edifice  of  Gentile 
Christianity  had  been  originally  established.  The 
vision  too  was  admirably  suited  to  serve  its  purpose. 
It  based  itself,  as  I  have  said,  on  Peter's  natural  feelings 
and  circumstances,  just  as  spiritual  things  ever  base 
themselves  upon  and  respond  to  the  natural  shadows  of 
this  lower  life,  just  as  the  Holy  Communion,  for  instance, 
bases  itself  upon  the  natural  craving  for  food  and 
drink,  but  rises  and  soars  far  away  above  and  beyond 
the  material  sphere  to  the  true  food  of  the  soul,  the 
Divine  banquet  wherewith  God's  secret  and  loved  ones 
are  eternally  fed.  Peter  was  hungry,  and  a  sheet  was 
seen  let  down  from  heaven  containing  all  kinds  of 
animals,  clean  and  unclean,  together  with  creeping 
things  and  fowls  of  heaven.  He  was  commanded  to 
rise  and  slay  and  appease  his  hunger.  He  states  the 
objection,  quite  natural  in  the  mouth  of  a  conscientious 


128  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Jew,  that  nothing  common  or  unclean  had  ever  been 
eaten  by  him.  Then  the  heavenly  voice  uttered  words 
which  struck  for  him  the  death-knell  of  the  old  haughty 
Jewish  exclusiveness,  inaugurating  the  grand  spirit  of 
Christian  liberalism  and  of  human  equality — "  What  God 
hath  cleansed,  make  thou  not  common."  The  vision 
was  thrice  repeated  to  make  the  matter  sure,  and  then 
the  heavens  were  shut  up  again,  and  Peter  was  left  to 
interpret  the  Divine  teaching  for  himself.  Peter,  in  the 
light  of  the  circumstances  which  a  few  moments  later 
took  place,  easily  read  the  interpretation  of  the  vision. 
The  distinction  between  animals  and  foods  was  for  the 
Jew  but  an  emblem  and  type,  a  mere  object  lesson  of  the 
distinction  between  the  Jews  and  other  nations.  The 
Gentiles  ate  every  kind  of  animal  and  creeping  thing ; 
the  favourite  food  of  the  Roman  soldiers  with  whom 
the  Palestinian  Jews  came  most  in  contact  being  pork. 
The  differences  which  the  Divine  law  compelled  the  Jew 
to  make  in  the  matter  of  food  were  simply  the  type  of 
the  difference  and  separation  which  God's  love  and 
grace  had  made  between  His  covenant  people  and  those 
outside  that  covenant.  And  just  then,  to  clinch  the 
matter  and  interpret  the  vision  by  the  light  of  divinely 
ordered  facts,  the  Spirit  announced  to  the  Apostle,  as 
"  he  was  much  perplexed  in  himself  what  the  vision 
might  mean,"  that  three  men  were  seeking  him,  and  that 
he  was  to  go  with  them  doubting  nothing,  "  for  I  have 
sent  them."  *     The  hour  had  at  last  come  for  the  mani- 


'  Calvin,  in  his  commentary  on  Acts  x.  12,  has  some  excellent 
remarks  on  the  scope  and  meaning  of  this  vision.  ' '  I  think  that  hereliy 
is  shown  to  Peter  that  the  distinction  which  God  hitherto  made  had 
now  been  removed.  For  as  He  had  made  a  difference  between 
animals  ;  so  by  the  choice  of  one  nation  for  Himself,  God  showed  that 
other  nations  were  common  and  unclean.  Now  the  distinction  between 
animals  being  removed,  He  consequently  shows  that  there  is  no  longer 


X.9-IS-]        THE  PETRI NE   VISION  AT  JOPPA.  129 


festation  of  God's  everlasting  purposes,  when  the 
sacred  society  should  assume  its  universal  privileges 
and  stand  forth  resplendent  in  its  true  character  as 
God's  Holy  Catholic  Church, — of  which  the  Temple 
had  been  a  temporary  symbol  and  pledge, — a  house  of 
prayer  for  all  nations,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  the 
city  of  the  Great  King,  until  the  consummation  of  all 
things. 

IV.  The  sacred  historian  next  presents  St.  Peter  at 
Caesarea.  The  Apostle  rose  up  obedient  to  the  Divine 
communication,  admitted  the  men  who  sought  him, 
lodged  them  for  the  night,  departed  back  the  next  day 


any  difference  between  men,  and  that  the  Jew  does  not  differ  from  the 
Greek.  Hence  Peter  is  warned  not  to  shrink  from  contact  with  the 
Gentiles  as  if  they  were  unclean.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  God 
wished  to  encourage  Peter  to  come  boldly  to  Cornelius.  Therefore,  in 
order  that  he  might  be  perfectly  satisfied,  God  shows  him  as  in  a 
picture  that  the  distinctions  made  by  the  law  between  clean  and 
unclean  had  been  abolished ;  whence  he  may  conclude  that  the  partition 
which  had  hitherto  divided  Jews  from  Gentiles  was  now" overthrown. 
Now  Paul  teaches  that  this  mystery  had  been  hid  from  the  ages  that  the 
Gentiles  should  be  partakers  with  God's  people  and  grafted  into  one 
body.  Therefore  Peter  never  would  have  dared  to  open  the  gate  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  unless  God  Himself  had  shown  him  that  the  wall 
had  been  removed  and  that  entrance  was  free  to  all."  He  then  goes 
on  to  consider  the  objection  that  St.  Peter  must  have  known  of  the  call 
of  the  Gentiles  from  the  words  of  Christ's  commission  to  go  and  make 
disciples  of  all  nations,  and  therefore  this  vision  was  unnecessary. 
"  I  answer  that  there  was  so  much  difficulty  in  the  novelty  of  the  whole 
state  of  affairs  that  the  apostles  could  not  at  once  grasp  the  position. 
They  knew  indeed  in  theory  the  prophecies  and  the  precept  of  Christ 
about  preaching  to  the  Gentiles,  but  when  they  came  to  practice,  struck 
by  the  awful  novelty,  they  hesitated.  Wherefore  it  is  not  wonderful 
that  the  Lord  should  confirm  St.  Peter's  mind  by  a  new  sign."  Calvin 
clearly  recognised  that  the  inspiration  enjoyed  by  St.  Peter  did  not 
remove  his  natural  slowness  of  perception.  The  apostles  were  like  the 
bulk  of  ordinary  men,  very  slow  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  of  a  novel 
position  or  principle. 

VOL.  II.  9 


I30  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

along  the  same  road  which  they  had  followed,  and  arrived 
at  Caesarea  on  the  fourth  day  from  the  original  appear- 
ance to  Cornelius  ;  so  that  if  the  angel  had  been  seen 
by  the  centurion  on  Saturday  or  the  Sabbath  the  vision 
would  have  been  seen  at  Joppa  on  the  Lord's  Day, 
and  then  on  Tuesday  St.  Peter  must  have  arrived  at 
Caesarea.  St.  Peter  did  not  travel  alone.  He  doubt- 
less communicated  the  vision  he  had  seen  to  the  Church 
at  Joppa  at  the  evening  hour  of  devotion,  and  deter- 
mined to  associate  with  himself  six  prominent  members 
of  that  body  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  novel  enterprise 
that  they  might  be  witnesses  of  God's  actions  and 
assistants  to  himself  in  the  work  of  baptism  and  of 
teaching.  As  soon  as  the  missionary  party  arrived 
at  the  house  of  Cornelius,  they  found  a  large  party 
assembled  to  meet  them,  as  Cornelius  had  called  to- 
gether his  kinsmen  and  acquaintances  to  hear  the 
message  from  heaven.  Cornelius  received  St.  Peter 
with  an  expression  of  such  profound  reverence,  pros- 
trating himself  on  the  earth,  that  St.  Peter  reproved 
him  :  "  But  Peter  raised  him  up,  saying.  Stand  up : 
I  myself  also  am  a  man."  Cornelius,  with  his  mind 
formed  in  a  pagan  mould  and  permeated  with  pagan 
associations  and  ideas,  regarded  Peter  as  a  superhuman 
being,  and  worthy  therefore  of  the  reverence  usually 
rendered  to  the  Roman  Emperor  as  the  living  embodi- 
ment of  deity  upon  earth.  He  fell  down  and  adored 
St.  Peter,  even  as  St.  John  adored  the  angel  who 
revealed  to  him  the  mysteries  of  the  unseen  world 
(Rev.  xxii.  8),  till  reminded  by  St.  Peter  that  he 
was  a  mere  human  being  like  the  centurion  himself, 
full  of  human  prejudices  and  narrow  ideas  which 
would  have  prevented  him  accepting  the  invitation 
of  Cornelius  if  God  Himself  had  not  intervened.     Cor- 


X.9-I5]        THE  PETRI NE   VISION  AT  JOPPA.  131 

nelius  then  describes  the  circumstances  of  his  vision 
and  the  angehc  directions  which  he  had  received,  ending 
by  requesting  St.  Peter  to  announce  the  revelation  of 
which  he  was  the  guardian.  The  Apostle  then  proceeds 
.0  deliver  an  address,  of  which  we  have  recorded  a  mere 
s/nopsis  alone  ;  the  original  address  must  have  been 
much  longer.  St.  Peter  begins  the  first  sermon  delivered 
to  Gentiles  by  an  assertion  of  the  catholic  nature  of 
the  Church,  a  truth  which  he  only  just  now  learned : 
"Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of 
persons  :  but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  Him,  and 
worketh  righteousness,  is  acceptable  to  Him  " :  a  pas- 
sage which  has  been  much  misunderstood.  People 
have  thought  that  St.  Peter  proclaims  by  these  words 
that  it  was  no  matter  what  religion  a  man  professed, 
provided  only  he  led  a  moral  life  and  worked  righteous- 
ness. His  doctrine  is  of  quite  another  type.  He  had 
already  proclaimed  to  the  Jews  the  exclusive  claims  of 
Christ  as  the  door  and  gate  of  eternal  life.  In  the 
fourth  chapter  and  twelfth  verse  he  had  told  the  Council 
at  Jerusalem  that  "  in  none  other  than  Jesus  Christ  of 
Nazareth  is  there  salvation  :  for  neither  is  there  any 
other  name  under  heaven,  that  is  given  among  men 
wherein  we  must  be  saved."  St.  Peter  had  seen  and 
heard  nothing  since  which  could  have  changed  his  views 
or  made  him  think  conscious  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  utterly 
unimportant,  as  this  method  of  interpretation,  to  which 
I  refer,  would  teach.  St.  Peter's  meaning  is  quite  clear 
when  we  consider  the  circumstances  amid  which  he 
stood.  He  had  hitherto  thought  that  the  privilege  of 
accepting  the  salvation  offered  was  limited  to  the 
Jews.  Now  he  had  learned  from  Heaven  itself  that  the 
offer  of  God's  grace  and  mercy  was  free  to  all,  and 
that  wherever  man  was  responding  to  the  dictates  of 


v* 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  ^APOSTLES. 


conscience  and  yielding  assent  to  the  guidance  of  the 
inner  light  with  which  every  man  was  blessed,  there 
God's  supreme  revelation  was  to  be  proclaimed  and  for 
them  the  doors  of  God's  Church  were  to  be  opened 
wide. 

St.  Peter  then  proceeds,  in  his  address,  to  recapitu- 
late the  leading  facts  of  the  gospel  story.  He  begins 
with  John's  baptism,  glances  at  Christ's  miracles,  His 
crucifixion,  resurrection,  and  mission  of  the  apostles, 
concluding  by  announcing  His  future  return  to  be  the 
Judge  of  quick  and  dead.  St.  Peter  must,  of  course, 
have  entered  into  greater  details  than  we  possess  in  our 
narrative ;  but  it  is  not  always  noticed  that  he  was 
addressing  people  not  quite  ignorant  of  the  story  which 
he  had  to  tell.  St.  Peter  begins  by  expressly  stating, 
"The  word  which  God  sent  unto  the  children  of  Israel, 
preaching  good  tidings  of  peace  by  Jesus  Christ  (He  is 
Lord  of  all) — that  saying  ye  yourselves  know."  Corne- 
lius and  his  friends  were  devout  and  eager  students  of 
Jewish  religious  movements,  and  they  had  heard  in 
Csesarea  vague  reports  of  the  words  and  doings  of  the 
great  prophet  who  had  caused  such  commotion  a  few 
years  before.  But  then  they  were  outside  the  bounds 
of  Israel,  whose  religious  authorities  had  rejected  this 
prophet.  The  religion  of  Israel  had  illuminated  their 
own  pagan  darkness,  and  they  therefore  looked  up  to  the 
decision  of  the  high  priests  and  of  the  Sanhedrin  with 
profound  veneration,  and  dared  not  to  challenge  it. 
They  had  never  previously  come  in  personal  contact 
with  any  of  the  new  prophet's  followers,  and  if  they 
had,  these  followers  would  not  have  communicated  to 
them  anything  of  .their  message.  They  simply  knew 
that  a  wondrous  teacher  had  appeared,  but  that  his 
teaching  was  universally  repudiated  by  the  men  whose 


X.9-I5-]        THE  PETRINE   VISION  AT  JOPPA.  133 

views  they  respected,  and  therefore  they  remained 
content  with  their  old  convictions.  The  information, 
however,  which  they  had  gained  formed  a  sohd 
foundation,  upon  which  St.  Peter  proceeded  to  raise 
the  superstructure  of  Christian  doctrine,  impressing 
the  points  which  the  Jews  denied — the  resurrection  of 
Christ  and  His  future  return  to  judge  the  world. 

In  this  connexion  St.  Peter  touches  upon  a  point 
which  has  often  exercised  men's  minds.  In  speaking 
of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  he  says,  "  Him  God 
raised  up  the  third  day,  and  gave  Him  to  be  made 
manifest,  not  to  all  the  people,  but  unto  witnesses  that 
were  chosen  before  of  God,  even  to  us,  who  did 
eat  and  drink  with  Him  after  He  rose  from  the  dead." 
From  the  time  of  Celsus,  who  lived  in  the  second  cen- 
tury, people  have  asked,  Why  did  not  the  risen  Saviour 
manifest  Himself  to  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees  ? 
Why  did  He  show  Himself  merely  to  His  friends  ? 
It  is  evident  that  from  the  very  beginning  this  point 
was  emphasised  by  the  Christians  themselves,  as 
St.  Peter  expressly  insists  upon  it  on  this  occasion. 
Now  several  answers  have  been  given  to  this  objection. 
Bishop  Butler  in  his  Analogy  deals  with  it.  Pie 
points  out  that  it  is  only  in  accordance  with  the  laws 
of  God's  dealings  in  ordinary  life.  God  never  gives 
overwhelming  evidence.  He  merely  gives  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  truth  or  wisdom  of  any  course,  and  till 
men  improve  the  evidence  which  He  gives  He  with- 
holds further  evidence.  Christ  gave  the  Jews  sufficient 
evidences  of  the  truth  of  His  work  and  mission  in  the 
miracles  which  He  wrought  and  the  gracious  words 
which  distilled  like  Divine  dew  from  His  lips.  They 
refused  the  evidence  which  He  gave,  and  it  would  not 
have  been  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  Divine 


134  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

action  that  He  should  then  give  them  more  convincing 
evidence.  Then,  again,  the  learned  Butler  argues  that 
it  would  have  been  useless,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned, 
to  have  manifested  Christ  to  the  Jewish  nation  at  large, 
unless  He  was  also  revealed  and  demonstrated  to  be 
the  risen  Saviour  to  the  Romans,  and  not  to  them 
merely,  but  also  to  each  successive  generation  of  men 
as  they  arose.  For  surely  if  men  can  argue  that  the 
apostles  and  the  five  hundred  brethren  who  saw  Christ 
were  deceived,  or  were  the  subjects  of  a  temporary 
illusion,  it  might  be  as  justly  argued  that  the  high 
priests  and  the  Sanhedrin  at  Jerusalem  were  in  their 
turn  deceived  or  the  subjects  of  a  hallucination  which 
their  longing  desire  for  a  Messiah  had  produced.  In 
modern  times,  again.  Dr.  Milligan  in  an  able  and  acute 
work  on  the  Resurrection  has  argued  that  it  was  im- 
possible, from  the  nature  of  the  resurrection  body  and 
the  character  of  the  resurrection  state,  for  Christ  to  be 
thus  manifested  to  the  Jewish  nation.  He  belonged 
to  a  different  plane.  He  lived  now  on  a  higher  level. 
He  could  not  now  be  submitted  to  a  coarse  contact 
with  gross  carnal  men.  He  was  obliged  therefore  to 
depend  upon  the  testimony  of  His  chosen  witnesses, 
fortified  and  confirmed  by  the  evidence  of  miracles,  of 
prophecy,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  speaking  in  them  and 
working  with  them.  All  these  arguments  are  most  true 
and  sound,  and  yet  they  fail  to  come  home  to  many 
minds.  .They  leave  something  to  be  desired.  They 
fail  in  showing  the  wisdom  of  the  actual  course  that 
was  adopted.  They  leave  men  thinking  in  their  secret 
hearts,  would  it  not  after  all  have  been  the  best  and 
most  satisfactory  course  if  the  risen  Lord  had  been 
manifested  to  all  the  people  and  not  merely  to  witnesses 
chosen  before  of  God  ?     I  think  there  is  an  argument 


X.9-I5.]         THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  135 

which  has  not  been  sufficiently  worked  out,  and  which 
directly  meets  and  answers  this  objection.  The  risen 
Saviour  was  not  manifested  to  all  the  people  because 
such  a  course  would  have  wrecked  the  great  cause 
which  He  had  at  heart,  and  defeated  the  great  end  of 
His  Incarnation,  which  was  to  establish  a  Church  on 
the  earth  where  righteousness  and  joy  and  peace  in  the 
Holy  Ghost  would  find  place  and  abound.  Let  us  take 
it  in  this  way.  Let  us  inquire  what  would  have  been 
the  immediate  consequence  had  Christ  been  revealed 
to  all  the  people  gathered  in  their  millions  for  the 
celebration  of  the  Passover.  They  would  either  have 
rejected  Him  afresh  or  they  would  have  accepted  Him. 
If  they  rejected  Him,  they  would  be  only  intensifying 
their  responsibility  and  their  guilt.  If  they  accepted  Him 
as  their  long-expected  Messiah,  then  would  have  come 
the  catastrophe.  In  their  state  of  strained  expectation 
and  national  excitement  they  would  have  swept  away 
every  barrier,  the}?-  would  have  rushed  to  arms  and 
burst  into  open  rebellion  against  the  Romans,  initiating 
a  war  which  would  have  only  ended  with  the  annihila- 
tion of  the  Jewish  race  or  with  the  destruction  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  immediate  result  of  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  risen  Saviour  to  the  chief  priests  and  the 
people  would  have  been  a  destruction  of  human  life  of 
such  a  widespread  and  awful  character  as  the  world 
had  never  seen.  This  we  know  from  history  would  have 
been  infallibly  the  case.  Again  and  again  during  the 
first  and  second  centuries  the  Jews  burst  forth  into 
similar  rebellions,  urged  on  by  some  fanatic  who  pre- 
tended to  be  the  long-expected  deliverer,  and  tens  of 
thousands,  aye,  even  hundreds  of  thousands  of  human 
lives  Jewish  and  Gentile  were  repeatedly  sacrificed  on 
the  altar  of  this  vain  carnal  expectation. 


136  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

We  are  expressly  informed  too  that  our  Lord  had 
experience  in  His  own  person  of  this  very  danger. 
St,  John  tells  us  that  Christ  Himself  had  on  one 
occasion  to  escape  from  the  Jews  when  they  were 
designing  to  take  Him  by  force  and  make  Him  a  King ; 
while  again  the  first  chapter  of  this  Book  of  Acts  and 
the  query  which  the  apostles  propounded  upon  the 
very  eve  of  the  Ascension  show  that  even  they 
with  all  the  teaching  which  they  had  received  from 
our  Lord  concerning  the  purely  spiritual  and  interior 
nature  of  His  kingdom  still  shared  in  the  national 
delusions,  and  were  cherishing  dreams  of  a  carnal 
empire  and  of  human  triumphs.  We  conclude,  then, 
on  purely  historical  grounds,  and  judging  from  the 
experience  of  the  past,  that  the  course  which  God 
actually  adopted  was  profoundly  wise  and  eminently 
calculated  to  avoid  the  social  dangers  which  surrounded 
the  path  of  the  Divine  developments.  I  think  that  if 
we  strive  to  realise  the  results  which  would  have 
followed  the  manifestation  of  Christ  in  the  manner 
which  objectors  suggest,  we  shall  see  that  the  whole 
spiritual  object,  the  great  end  of  Christ's  Incarnation, 
would  have  been  thus  defeated.  That  great  end  was 
to  establish  a  kingdom  of  righteousness,  peace,  and 
humility ;  and  that  was  the  purpose  attained  by  the 
mode  of  action  which  was  in  fact  adopted.  From 
the  Day  of  Pentecost  onward  the  Church  grew  and 
flourished,  developing  and  putting  in  practice,  however 
imperfectly,  the  laws  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
But  if  Christ  had  revealed  Himself  to  the  unconverted 
Jews  of  Jerusalem  after  the  Resurrection,  it  would 
not  have  had  the  slightest  effect  towards  making 
them  Christians  after  the  model  which  He  desired. 
Nay,  rather  such  an   appearance  would  merely  have 


X.9-IS.]        THE  PETRINE   VISION  AT  JOPPA.  137 

intensified  their  narrow  Judaism  and  confirmed  them 
in  those  sectarian  prejudices,  that  rigid  exclusiveness 
from  which  Christ  had  come  to  deHver  His  people. 
The  spiritual  effects  of  such  an  appearance  would 
have  been  absolutely  nothing.  The  temporal  effects  of 
it  would  have  been  awfully  disastrous,  unless  indeed 
God  had  consented  to  work  the  most  prodigious  and 
astounding  miracles,  such  as  smiting  the  Roman 
armies  with  destruction  and  interfering  imperiously 
with  the  course  of  human  society. 

Then  again  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  ^uch  a 
method  of  dealing  with  the  Jews  would  have  been 
contrary  to  Christ's  methods  and  laws  of  action  as 
displayed  during  His  earthly  ministry.  He  never 
worked  miracles  for  the  mere  purposes  of  intellectual 
conviction.  When  a  sign  from  heaven  was  demanded 
from  Him  for  this  very  purpose  He  refused  it.  He 
ever  aimed  at  spiritual  conversion.  An  exhibition  of 
the  risen  Lord  to  the  Jewish  nation  might  have  been 
followed  by  a  certain  amount  of  intellectual  conviction 
as  to  His  Divine  authority  and  mission.  But,  apart 
from  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  had  not 
been  then  poured  out,  this  intellectual  conviction  would 
have  been  turned  to  disastrous  purposes,  as  we  have 
now  shown,  and  have  proved  utterly  useless  towards 
spiritual  conversion.  The  case  of  the  Resurrection  is, 
in  fact,  in  many  respects  like  the  case  of  the  Incarnation. 
We  think  in  our  human  blindness  that  we  would  have 
managed  the  manifestations  and  revelations  of  God 
much  better,  and  we  secretly  find  fault  with  the  Divine 
methods,  because  Christ  did  not  come  much  earlier 
in  the  world's  history  and  thousands  of  years  had 
to  elapse  before  the  Divine  Messenger  appeared.  But 
then.  Scripture  assures  us  that  it  was  in  the  fulness 


138  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  time  Christ  came,  and  a  profounder  investigation 
will  satisfy  us  that  history  and  experience  bear  out  the 
testimony  of  Scripture.  In  the  same  way  human  blind- 
ness imagines  that  it  would  have  managed  the  Resur- 
rection far  better,  and  it  has  a  scheme  of  its  own 
whereby  Christ  should  have  been  manifested  at  once 
to  the  Jews,  who  would  have  been  at  once  converted 
into  Christians  of  the  type  of  the  apostles,  and  then 
Christ  should  have  advanced  to  the  city  of  Rome, 
casting  down  the  idols  in  His  triumphant  march,  and 
changing  the  Roman  Empire  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  This  is  something  like  the  scheme  which  the 
human  mind  in  secret  substitutes  for  the  Divine  plan, 
a  scheme  which  would  have  involved  the  most  extrava- 
gant interruptions  of  the  world's  business,  the  most  ex- 
traordinary interpositions  on  God's  part  with  the  course 
of  human  affairs.  For  one  miracle  which  the  Divine 
method  has  necessitated,  the  human  plan,  which  lies  at 
the  basis  of  the  objections  we  are  considering,  would 
have  necessitated  the  working  of  a  thousand  miracles 
and  these  of  a  most  stupendous  type.  These  con- 
siderations will  help  to  show  what  bad  judges  we 
are  of  the  Divine  methods  of  action,  and  will  tend 
towards  spiritual  and  mental  humility  by  impressing 
upon  us  the  inextricable  confusion  into  which  we  should 
inevitably  land  the  world's  affairs  had  we  but  the 
management  of  them  for  a  very  few  hours.  Verily 
as  we  contemplate  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  and 
the  management  of  the  whole  plan  of  salvation,  we 
gather  glimpses  of  the  supernatural  wisdom  whereby 
the  whole  was  ordered,  and  learn  thus  to  sing  with 
a  deeper  meaning  the  ancient  strain,  "Thy  way, 
O  God,  is  in  the  sea,  and  Thy  paths  in  the  great 
waters,    and    Thy  footsteps    are    not    known.      Thou 


X.  9-15]        THE  PETRINE    VISION  AT  JOPPA.  139 

leddest  thy  people  like  sheep,  by  the  hand  of  Moses 
and  Aaron."  - 

The  sacred  narrative  then  tells  us  that  "  while  Peter 
yet  spake  these  words,  the  Holy  Ghost  fell  on  all  them 
which  heard  the  word."  The  brethren  which  came 
from  Joppa,  strict  observers  of  the  law  of  Moses  as  they 
were,  beheld  the  external  proofs  of  God's  presence,  and 
were  amazed,  "  because  that  on  the  Gentiles  also  was 
poured  out  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  which  is  further 
explained  by  the  words,  "  they  heard  the  Gentiles  speak- 
ing with  tongues  and  magnifying  God."  The  gift  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  takes  the  same  and  yet  a  different  shape 
from  that  in  which  it  was  manifested  on  the  Day  of 
Pentecost.  The  gifts  of  tongues  on  the  Day  of  Pente- 
cost was  manifested  in  a  variety  of  languages,  because 
there  was  a  vast  variety  of  tongues  and  nationalities 
then  present  at  Jerusalem.  But  it  would  seem  as  if  on 
this  occasion  the  Holy  Ghost  and  His  gift  of  speech 
displayed  itself  in  sacred  song  and  holy  praise  :  "  They 
heard  them  speak  with  tongues  and  magnify  God." 
Greek  was  practically  the  one  tongue  of  all  those  who 
were  present.  The  new  converts  had  been  inhabitants 
for  years  of  Caesarea  which  was  now  one  of  the  most 
thoroughly  Greek  towns  in  Palestine,  so  that  the  gift  of 
tongues  as  displayed  on  this  occasion  must  have  been 

'  The  aim  of  Christianity  was  to  stril'ce  at  the  essential  evil  of  the 
human  heart.  One  darling  sin  of  man  is  ostentation.  It  was  one  special 
vice  of  society  in  the  age  of  the  Incarnation,  as  students  of  the  history 
of  that  period  know  right  well.  Now  the  real  objection  to  the  Divine 
method  of  action  about  Christ's  Resurrection  is  that  it  was  not  ostenta- 
tious. If  the  human  scheme  had  been  adopted,  it  would  simply  have 
encouraged  and  sanctioned  the  ostentation  which  already  dominated  the 
world.  But  the  Divine  rule  ever  is  this,  "The  kingdom  of  God  cometh 
not  with  observation,"  and  in  the  very  method  of  its  development 
Christianity  has  taught  men  humility  and  self-abasement, 


140  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  somewhat  different  character  from  that  exercised  on 
the  Day  of  Pentecost,  when  a  vast  variety  of  nations 
heard  the  company  of  the  disciples  and  apostles  speak- 
ing in  their  own  languages.  There  is  another  difference 
too  between  the  original  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  this  repetition  of  the  gift.  The  Holy  Ghost  on  the 
first  occasion  was  poured  out  upon  the  preachers  of 
the  word  to  qualify  them  to  preach  to  the  people.  The 
Holy  Ghost  on  the  second  occasion  was  poured  out 
upon  the  persons  to  whom  the  word  was  preached  to 
sanction  and  confirm  the  call  of  the  Gentiles.  The 
gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  confined  to  no  rank  or  order. 
They  are  displayed  as  the  common  property  of  all 
Christian  people,  and  indicate  the  freedom  and  the 
plenteousness  wherewith  God's  blessings  shall  be  dis- 
pensed under  the  new  covenant  which  was  taking  the 
place  of  the  old  Levitical  Law. 

And  then  comes  the  last  touch  which  the  narrative 
puts  to  the  whole  story  :  "  Then  answered  Peter,  Can 
any  man  forbid  the  water,  that  these  should  not  be 
baptized,  which  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost  as  well 
as  we  ?  And  he  commanded  them  to  be  baptized  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ."  What  a  corrective  we  here 
find  of  those  ultra-spiritual  views  which  make  shipwreck 
of  faith !  We  have  known  intelligent  men  speak  as 
if  the  apostles  laid  no  stress  upon  holy  baptism,  and 
valued  it  not  one  whit  as  compared  with  the  interior 
gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  We  have  known  intelligent 
members  of  the  Society  of  Friends  who  could  not  see 
that  the  apostles  taught  the  necessity  for  what  they 
call  water  baptism.  For  both  these  classes  of  objectors 
these  words  of  St.  Peter,  this  incident  in  the  story  of 
Cornelius  have  an  important  lesson.  They  prove  the 
absolute  necessity  in  the  apostolic  estimation  of  the 


X.  9-IS-]        THE  PETRINE   VISION  AT  JOPPA.  141 


rite  of  Holy  Baptism  as  perpetually  practised  in  the 
Church  of  God.  For  surely  if  ever  the  washing  of 
water  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity  could  have  been 
dispensed  with,  it  was  in  the  case  of  men  upon  whom 
God  had  just  poured  the  supernatural  gift  of  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  and  yet  even  in  their  case  the  divinely 
appointed  sacrament  of  entrance  into  the  sacred  society 
could  not  be  dispensed  with.  They  were  baptized  with 
water  in  the  sacred  name,  and  then,  cherishing  that 
sweet  sense  of  duty  fulfilled  and  obedience  rendered 
and  spiritual  peace  and  joy  possessed  which  God 
bestows  upon  His  elect  people,  they  entered  into  that 
fuller  knowledge  and  richer  grace,  that  feast  of  spiritual 
fat  things  which  St.  Peter  could  impart,  as  he  told 
them  from  his  own  personal  knowledge  of  the  life  and 
teaching  of  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the 
history  of  this  critical  event  should  terminate  with 
these  words  :  "  Then  prayed  they  him  to  tarry  certain 
days,"  ^  expressing  their  keen  desire  to  drink  more 
deeply  of  the  well  of  life  thus  lately  opened  to  their 
fainting  souls, 

'  Tradition  tells  very  little  about  Cornelius.  There  is  indeed  a  long 
article  devoted  to  him  by  the  Bollandists,  Acta  Sanctorum,  Feb.  t.  i, 
p.  280,  but  there  is  nothing  in  it.  He  is  commemorated  on  Feb.  2nd. 
The  Greeks  make  him  bishop  of  Scepsis,  the  Latins  of  Csesarea.  St. 
Jerome  says  that  in  his  time  the  house  of  Cornelius  had  been  turned 
into  a  church.  The  story  of  his  life  as  told  in  the  Martyrologies  is 
evidently  a  mere  mediaeval  concoction.  At  Scepsis  the  prefect  Demetrius 
brings  him  into  a  temple  of  Apollo,  when  at  his  prayer  the  idol  is 
smashed  to  pieces  and  the  magistrate  converted.  Such  stories  are, 
however,  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  legend-mongers  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES. 
"  The  disciples  were  called  Christians  first  at  Antioch."— Acts  xi.  26. 

THE  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Acts  is  clearly  divisible 
into  two  portions.  There  is  first  the  narrative  of 
St.  Peter's  reception  at  Jerusalem  after  the  conversion 
of  Cornelius,  and  secondly  the  story  of  the  origin  of 
the  Antiochene  Church,  the  mother  and  metropolis  of 
Gentile  Christendom.  They  are  distinct  the  one  from 
the  other,  and  yet  they  are  closely  connected  together, 
for  they  both  deal  with  the  same  great  topic,  the  ad- 
mission of  the  Gentiles  to  full  and  free  communion  in 
the  Church  of  God.  Let  us  then  search  out  the  line 
of  thought  which  runs  like  a  golden  thread  through 
this  whole  chapter,  sure  that  in  doing  so  we  shall  find 
light  shed  upon  some  modern  questions  from  this 
divinely  written  ecclesiastical  history. 

I.  St.  Peter  tarried  a  certain  time  with  Cornelius  and 
the  other  new  converts  at  Caesarea.  There  was  doubt- 
less much  to  be  taught  and  much  to  be  set  in  order. 
Baptism  was  in  the  early  Church  administered  when 
the  converts  were  yet  immature  in  faith  and  know- 
ledge. The  Church  was  viewed  as  a  hospital,  where 
the  sick  and  feeble  were  to  be  admitted  and  cured. 
It  was  not  therefore  demanded  of  candidates  for  ad- 
mission  that   they  should    be   perfectly  instructed  in 

142 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  143 

all  the  articles  and  mysteries  of  the  Christian  faith. 
There  were  indeed  some  points  in  which  they  were  not 
instructed  at  all  till  they  had  been  "  buried  with  Christ 
through  baptism  into  death."  Then  when  they  had 
taken  their  stand  upon  the  Christian  platform,  and 
were  able  to  view  the  matter  from  the  true  vantage 
point,  they  were  admitted  into  fuller  and  deeper 
mysteries.  Peter  too  must  have  had  his  work  cut  out 
for  him  at  Caesarea  in  striving  to  organise  the  Church. 
St.  Philip  may  have  here  lent  his  aid,  and  may  have 
been  constituted  the  resident  head  of  the  local  Church.^ 
After  the  baptism  of  the  Ethiopian  eunuch  he  worked 
his  way  up  to  Caesarea,  preaching  in  all  the  towns  and 
villages  of  that  populous  district.  There  he  seems  to 
have  fixed  his  residence,  as  fifteen  years  or  so  later  we 
find  him  permanently  located  in  that  city  with  his  "  four 
daughters,  virgins,  which  did  prophesy  "  (Acts  xxi.  8,  9). 
We  may  be  sure  that  some  such  Church  organisation 
was  immediately  started  at  Caesarea.  We  have  already 
traced  the  work  of  organisation  in  Jerusalem.  The 
apostles  originally  embraced  in  themselves  all  ministerial 
offices,  as  in  turn  these  offices  were  originally  all 
summed  up  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  apostles  had  taken 
an  important  step  in  the  establishment  of  the  order  of 
deacons  at  Jerusalem,  retaining  in  their  own  hands  the 
supreme  power  to  which  appeal  and  reports  could  be 
made.  At  Damascus  it  is  evident  that  at  the  time  of 
St.  Paul's  conversion  there  was  an  organised  Church, 
Ananias  being  the  head  and  chief  of  it,  with  whom 
communications  were  officially  held ;  while  the  notices 
about  Joppa  and  the  six  witnesses  of  his  action  whom 

'  The  Church  tradition  reports,  however,  that  Cornelius  was  first 
bishop  of  Ccesarea,  but  without  any  solid  authority  for  the  statement. 
See,  however,  the  note  in  last  chapter,  p.  141. 


144  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

St.  Peter  brought  with  him  to  Caesarea  indicate  that 
an  assembly  or  Church  organised  after  the  model  of 
the  Jerusalem  Church  existed  in  that  town. 

Having  concluded  his  work  in  Caesarea  St.  Peter  re- 
turned to  Jerusalem,  and  there  had  to  render  an  account 
of  his  action  and  was  placed  upon  his  defence.  "  When 
Peter  was  come  up  to  Jerusalem,  they  that  were  of  the 
circumcision  contended  with  him,  saying,  Thou  wentest 
in  to  men  uncircumcised,  and  didst  eat  with  them." 
This  simple  circumstance  throws  much  light  upon  the 
character  of  earliest  Christianity.  It  was  to  a  large  ex- 
tent a  Christian  democracy.  The  apostles  exercised  the 
supreme  executive  power,  but  the  collective  Christian 
assembly  claimed  the  exercise  of  their  private  judgment, 
and,  above  all,  knew  not  anything  of  the  fancied  privilege 
of  St.  Peter,  as  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  to  lay  down  on 
his  own  authority  the  laws  for  the  whole  Christian 
Commonwealth.  Here  was  St.  Peter  exercising  his 
ministry  and  apostolic  power  among  the  earliest  Chris- 
tians. How  were  his  ministry  and  authority  received  ? 
Were  they  treated  as  if  the  personal  authority  and 
decision  of  St.  Peter  settled  every  question  without  any 
further  appeal  ?  This  will  be  best  seen  if  we  tell  a 
story  well  known  in  the  annals  of  ecclesiastical  history. 
The  fable  of  Papal  Supremacy  began  to  be  asserted  about 
the  year  500,  when  a  series  of  forgeries  were  circulated 
concerning  the  bishops  of  Rome  and  their  decisions 
during  the  ages  of  persecution.  One  of  these  forgeries 
dealt  with  a  pope  named  Marcellinus,  who  presided  over 
the  See  of  Rome  during  the  beginning  of  the  great 
Diocletian  persecution.  The  story  goes  on  to  tell  that 
Marcellinus  fell  into  idolatry  in  order  to  save  his  life. 
A  council  of  three  hundred  bishops  was  summoned 
at  Sinuessa,  when  the  assembled  bishops  are  reported 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  14S 

to  have  refused  to  pass  sentence  on  the  Pope,  the 
successor  of  St.  Peter,  saying  that  the  Holy  See  may 
be  judged  by  no  man.  They  therefore  called  upon  the 
Pope  to  condemn  himself,  as  he  alone  was  a  judge  com- 
petent to  exercise  such  a  function.  This  story,  accord- 
ing to  DoUinger,  was  forged  about  the  year  500,  and  it 
clearly  exhibits  the  different  view  taken  of  the  position 
of  St.  Peter  in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  and  of  his 
alleged  successors  in  the  Church  of  Rome  five  centuries 
later.  In  the  latter  case  St.  Peter's  successor  cannot 
be  judged  or  condemned  by  any  mortal.^  According  to 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  the  members  of  the  stricter 
party  in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  had  no  hesitation  in 
challenging  the  actions  and  teaching  of  St.  Peter  him- 
self, and  it  was  only  when  he  could  prove  the  immediate 
and  manifest  approval  of  Heaven  that  they  ceased 
their  opposition,  saying,  "  Then  to  the  Gentiles  also 
hath  God  granted  repentance  unto  Hfe." 

We  can  in  this  incident  see  how  the  Church  was 
slowly  but  surely  developing  itself  under  the  Divine 
guidance.  The  incident  when  the  order  of  deacons  was 
instituted  was  the  primary  step.  There  was  then  first 
manifested  that  combination  of  authority  and  freedom 
united  with  open  discussion  which,  originating  in  the 
Christian  Church,  has  been  the  source  of  all  modern 
society,  of  modern  governments,  and  modern  methods 
of  legislation.  Now  we  see  the  same  ideas  applied  to 
questions  of  doctrine  and  discipline,  till  we  come  in 
a  short  time  to  the  perfection  of  this  method  in  the 
celebrated  Council  of  Jerusalem  which  framed  the 
charter  and  traced  out  the  main  lines  of  development 

'  See  the  article  on  Marcellinus  (i)  in  the  Didionaiy  of  Christian 
Biography,  vol.  iii.,  p.  804,  wliere  all  the  facts  are  told  of  this  curious 
story. 

VOL.    II.  IQ 


146  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

upon  which  the  Church  of  the  Gentiles  and  true  gospel 
freedom  were  established. 

II.  The  centre  of  Christian  interest  now  shifts  its 
position  and  fixes  itself  in  the  city  of  Antioch,  where  a 
further  step  in  advance  was  taken.  Our  attention  is 
first  of  all  recalled  to  the  results  of  St.  Stephen's  death. 
"  They  therefore  that  were  scattered  abroad  upon  the 
tribulation  that  arose  about  Stephen  travelled  as  far 
as  Phoenicia,  and  Cyprus,  and  Antioch,  speaking  the 
word  to  none  save  only  to  Jews.  But  there  were 
some  of  them,  men  of  Cyprus  and  Cyrene,  who,  when 
they  were  come  to  Antioch,  spake  unto  the  Greeks 
also,  preaching  the  Lord  Jesus."  This  is  clearly  a 
case  of  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  Gentiles,  and  the 
question  has  been  raised.  Was  the  action  of  these 
men  of  Cyprus  and  Cyrene  quite  independent  of  the 
action  of  St.  Peter  or  an  immediate  result  of  the  same  ? 
Did  the  men  of  Cyprus  and  Cyrene  preach  the 
gospel  to  the  Gentiles  of  Antioch  of  their  own  motion, 
or  did  they  wait  till  tidings  of  St.  Peter's  action  had 
reached  them,  and  then,  yielding  to  the  generous 
instincts  which  had  been  long  beating  in  the  hearts  of 
these  Hellenistic  Jews,  did  they  proclaim  at  Antioch  the 
glad  tidings  of  salvation  which  the  Gentiles  of  that  gay 
and  brilliant  but  very  wicked  city  so  much  needed  ? 
Our  answer  to  these  queries  is  very  short  and  plain. 
We  think  that  the  preaching  of  the  Hellenists  of 
Cyprus  to  the  Gentiles  of  Antioch  must  have  been 
the  result  of  St.  Peter's  action  at  Csesarea,  else  why 
did  they  wait  till  Antioch  was  reached  to  open  their 
mouths  to  the  pagan  world  ?  Surely  if  the  sight  of 
sin  and  wickedness  and  civilised  depravity  was  neces- 
sary to  stir  them  up  to  efforts  for  the  spiritual  welfare 
of  the  Gentile  world,   Phoenicia  and  Cyprus  abounded 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  147 


with  scenes  quite  sufficient  to  unseal  their  lips.  But 
the  force  of  national  prejudice  and  of  religious  exclusive- 
ness  was  too  strong  till  they  came  to  Antioch,  where 
tidings  must  have  reached  them  of  the  vision  and 
action  of  St.  Peter  at  Caesarea. 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  this  information  reached  the 
missionaries  at  Antioch.  Caesarea  was  the  Roman 
capital  of  Palestine,  and  was  a  seaport.  Antioch  was 
the  Roman  capital  of  the  province  of  Syria,  an  immense 
extent  of  territory,  which  included  not  merely  the 
country  which  we  call  Syria,  but  extended  to  the 
Euphrates  on  the  wek  and  to  the  desert  intervening 
between  Palestine  and  Egypt  on  the  south.  The 
prefect  of  the  East  resided  at  Antioch,  and  he  was 
one  of  the  three  or  four  greatest  officials  under  the 
Roman  emperor.  Palestine  was,  in  fact,  a  part  of 
the  province  of  Syria,  and  its  ruler  or  president  was 
dependent  upon  the  governor  of  Syria.  It  is  there- 
fore in  strictest  accordance  with  the  facts  of  Roman 
history  when  St.  Luke  tells  in  his  Gospel  (ii.  2) 
concerning  the  taxation  of  Augustus  Caesar,  "This 
was  the  first  enrolment  made  when  Quirinus  was 
governor  of  Syria"  Antioch  being  then  the  seat  of 
the  central  government  of  the  eastern  division  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  Caesarea  being  the  headquarters 
of  an  important  lieutenant  of  the  Syrian  proconsul, 
it  is  no  wonder  there  should  have  been  very  constant 
intercourse  between  the  two  places.  The  great  maga- 
zines of  arms  for  the  entire  east  were  located  at 
Antioch,  and  there  too  the  money  was  coined  neces- 
sary to  pay  the  troops  and  to  carry  on  commercial 
intercourse.  It  must  have  been  very  easy  for  an 
official  hke  Cornehus,  or  even  for  any  simple  private 
soldier  or  for  an  ordinary  Jew  or  Christian  of  Caesarea, 


148  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


to  communicate  with  Antioch,  and  to  send  word  con- 
cerning the  proceedings  of  St.  Peter  and  the  blessings 
vouchsafed  by  God  to  any  devout  person  who  might  be 
there  seeking  after  light  and  truth .^     It  is  quite  natural 
therefore    that,    while    the    Christians    dispersed    into 
various    lands    by    the   persecution    at    Jerusalem   re- 
strained themselves  to  the  Jews  alone  throughout  their 
previous  labours,  when  the  men  of  Cyprus  and  Cyrene 
heard  tidings  at  Antioch  of  St.  Peter  and  his  doings 
and  revelations  at  Caesarea,  they  at  last  allowed  free 
scope  to  their  longings  which  long  ago  had  found  place 
in  their  more  liberalised   hearts,   and    testified  to  the 
Gentiles  of  Antioch  concerning  the  gladsome  story  of 
the  gospel.     Here  again  we  behold  another  instance  of 
the  value  of  culture  and  travel  and  enlarged  intelligence. 
The  Hellenists  of  Cyprus  and  Cyrene  were  the  first  to 
realise  and  act  out  the  principle  which  God  had  taught 
St.    Peter.     They    saw    that    God's  mercies  were  not 
restrained  to  the  particular  case  of  Cornelius.     They 
realised  that  his  was  a  typical  instance,  and  that  his 
conversion  was  intended  to  carry  with  it  and  to  decide 
the  possibility  of  Gentile  salvation  and  the  formation  of 
a  Gentile  Church  all  over  the  world,  and  they  put  the 
principle  in  operation  at  once  in  one  of  the  places  where 
it  was  most  needed  :  "When  the  men  of  Cyprus  and 
Cyrene  were  come   to    Antioch,   they  spake  unto   the 
Greeks  also,  preaching  the  Lord  Jesus."     The  method 
of  the  Divine  development  was  in  the  primitive  ages 
very    similar    to    that    we    often    still    behold.       Some 
improvement  is  required,  some  new  principle  has  to  be 
set  in  motion.     If  younger  men  begin  the  work,  or  if 

'  Cjesarea  and  Antioch  were  about  two  hundred  miles  distant  from 
each  other  by  sea.  A  Roman  trireme  travelhng  at  express  speed  would 
easily  have  accomplished  this  distance  in  two  or  at  most  three  days. 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  149 

souls  notorious  for  their  freer  thought  or  less  prejudiced 
understandings,  attempt  to  introduce  the  novel  principle, 
the  vast  mass  of  stolid  conservative  opposition  and 
attachment  to  the  past  is  at  once  quickened  into  lively 
action.  But  then  some  Peter  or  another,  some  man  of 
known  rectitude  and  worth,  and  yet  of  equally  well- 
known  narrow  views  and  devoted  adherence  to  the  past, 
takes  some  hesitating  step  in  advance.  He  may  indeed 
strive  to  limit  its  application  to  the  special  case  before 
him,  and  he  may  earnestly  deprecate  any  wider  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  on  which  he  has  acted.  But  it  is 
all  in  vain.  He  has  served  the  Divine  purposes.  His 
narrowness  and  respectability  and  personal  weight 
have  done  their  work,  and  have  sanctioned  the  intro- 
duction of  the  principle  which  then  is  applied  upon  a 
much  wider  scale  by  men  whose  minds  have  been 
liberalised  and  trained  to  seize  a  great  broad  principle 
and  put  it  into  practical  operation. 

III.  "When  they  came  to  Antioch,  they  spake  the 
word  to  the  Greek  also."  And  verily  the  men  of  Cyprus 
and  Cyrene  chose  a  fitting  spot  to  open  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  to  the  Greek  world  and  to  found  the  mother 
Church  of  Gentile  Christendom,  for  no  city  in  the  whole 
world  was  more  completely  Satan's  seat,  or  more 
entirely  devoted  to  those  works  which  St.  John 
describes  as  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the 
eye,  and  the  vain-glory  of  life.  Let  us  reflect  a  little 
on  (the  history  and  state  of  Antioch,  and  we  shall 
then  see  the  Divine  motive  in  selecting  it  as  the  site 
of  the  first  great  Gentile  Church,  and  we  shall  see  too 
the  Divine  guidance  which  led  St.  'Luke  in  this 
typical  ecclesiastical  history  to  select  the  Church 
of  Antioch  for  such  frequent  notice,  exceeding,  as  it 
does,  all  other  Churches  save  Jerusalem  in  the  amount 


150  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of    attention    bestowed    upon    it    in    tlie    Acts    of  the 
Apostles.^ 

Antioch  and  Alexandria  were  towns  dating  from  the 
same  epoch.  They  came  into  existence  about  the  year 
300  B.C.,  being  the  creation  of  Alexander  the  Great 
himself,  or  of  the  generals  who  divided  his  empire 
between  them.  The  city  of  Antioch  was  originally 
built  by  Seleucus  Nicator,  the  founder  of  the  kingdom 
of  Syria,  but  was  subsequently  enlarged,  so  that  in 
St.  Paul's  time  it  was  divided  into  four  independent 
districts  or  towns,  each  surrounded  by  its  own  walls, 
and  all  included  within  one  vast  wall  some  fifty  feet 
high,  which  surmounted  mountain  tops  and  was  carried 
at  vast  expense  across  valleys  and  ravines.  Antioch 
was  in  the  first  century  counted  the  third  city  in  the 
world,  Rome  being  first,  Alexandria  second,  and 
Antioch  third.  It  had  marvellous  natural  advantages. 
It  was  blessed  with  charming  mountain  scenery.  The 
peaks  rising  up  on  all  sides  could  be  seen  from  every 
part  of  the  city,  imparting  thus  to  life  in  Antioch  that 
sense  not  merely  of  beauty  and  grandeur,  but  of  the 
nearness  of  such  beauty  and  grandeur  combined  with 
solitude  and  freedom  from  the  madding  crowd  which 
seem  so  sweet  to  a  man  who  passes  his  life  amid  the 
noise  and  hurry  of  a  great  city.  What  a  change  in  the 
conditions  of  life  in  London  would  be  at  once  brought 
about  could  the  scenery  surrounding  Edinburgh  or 
Lucerne  be  transferred  to  the  world's  metropolis,  and 
the  toiler  in  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand  be  enabled  to 
look  amid  his  daily  labours  upon  cloud-piercing  mount- 

'  Ths  various  Lives  of  St.  Paul  and  Gibbon  in  his  Decline  and  Fall 
give  minute  accounts  of  Antioch,  its  grandeur  and  wickedness  ;  K.  O. 
Midler's  Antiquities  of  Antioch,  Gottingen,  1839  is  an  exhaustive  work 
on  the  subject ;  see  also  Mommsen's  Provinces,  Book  VIII.,  ch.  x. 


xi.26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  151 

ains  or  peaks  clad  in  a  robe  of  virgin  white  !  Antioch 
was  built  upon  the  southern  bank  of  the  river  Orontes, 
along  which  it  extended  about  five  miles.  The  main 
street  of  the  city,  otherwise  called  the  Street  of  Herod 
after  the  celebrated  Herod  the  Great  who  built  it,  was 
four  and  a  half  miles  long.  This  street  was  unrivalled 
among  the  cities  of  the  world,  and  was  furnished  with 
an  arcade  on  both  sides  extending  its  whole  length, 
beneath  which  the  inhabitants  could  walk  and  transact 
business  at  all  times  free  from  the  heat  and  from  the  rain. 
The  water  supply  of  Antioch  was  its  special  feature. 
The  great  orator  Libanius,  a  native  of  Antioch,  who 
lived  three  hundred  years  later  than  St.  Paul,  while  the 
city  yet  stood  in  all  its  grandeur  and  beauty,  thus 
dwells  on  this  feature  of  Antioch  in  a  panegyric  com- 
posed under  the  Emperor  Constantius  :  "  That  wherein 
we  beat  all  other  is  the  water  supply  of  our  city  ;  if  in 
other  respects  any  one  may  compete  with  us,  all  give 
way  so  soon  as  we  come  to  speak  of  the  water,  its  abun- 
dance and  its  excellence.  In  the  public  baths  every 
stream  has  the  proportions  of  a  river,  in  the  private 
baths  several  have  the  like,  and  the  rest  not  much  less. 
One  measures  the  abundance  of  running  water  by  the 
number  of  the  dwelling-houses  ;  for  as  many  as  are 
the  dwelling-houses,  so  many  are  also  the  running 
waters.  Therefore  we  have  no  fighting  at  the  public 
wells  as  to  who  shall  come  first  to  draw — an  evil  under 
which  so  many  considerable  towns  suffer,  when  there 
is  a  violent  crowding  round  the  wells  and  outcry  over 
broken  jars.  With  us  the  public  fountains  flow  for 
ornament,  since  every  one  has  water  within  his  doors. 
And  this  water  is  so  clear  that  the  pail  appears  empty, 
and  so  pleasant  that  it  invites  us  to  drink."  ^     Such  was 

'  The  same  orator  informs  us  that  the  streets  of  Antioch  were  lighted 


152  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  description  of  a  pagan  who  saw  Antioch  even  as 
St.  Paul  saw  it,  and  testified  concerning  the  natural 
gifts  with  which  God  had  endowed  it.  But,  alas !  as 
with  individuals,  so  is  it  with  cities.  God  may  lavish 
His  best  blessings,  and  yet  instead  of  bringing  forth 
the  fruits  of  righteousness  His  choicest  gifts  of  nature 
may  be  turned  into  fruitful  seed  plots  of  lust  and  sin. 
Sodom  and  Gomorrha  were  planted  in  a  vale  that  was 
well  watered  and  fair  and  fruitful,  even  as  the  Garden 
of  the  Lord ;  but  the  inhabitants  thereof  were  wicked, 
and  sinners  before  the  Lord  exceedingly ;  and  so  it  was 
with  Antioch.  This  city  so  blessed  in  situation  and 
in  nature's  richest  and  most  precious  gifts  was  cele- 
brated for  its  wicked  pre-eminence  amid  the  awful 
corruption  which  then  overspread  the  cities  of  the 
world.  When  the  Roman  satirist  Juvenal,  writing 
about  this  period  of  which  we  treat,  would  fain  account 
for  the  excessive  dissolution  of  morals  which  then 
prevailed  at  Rome,  his  explanation  of  it  was  that  the 
manners  of  Antioch  had  invaded  Rome  and  corrupted 
its  ancient  purity  : 

"  Jampridem  Syrus  in  Tiberim  defluxit  Oi'ontes."' 
Amid  the  general  wickedness  of  Antioch  there  was 

at  night  with  public  lamps.  In  this  respect  it  stood  alone  among  the 
cities  of  antiquity  :  see  Libanius,  I.,  363,  and  the  notes  of  Valesius  on 
Ammianus  Mavcellinus,  xiv.,  i,  9. 

'  Juv.,  Sat.,  iii.,  62.  See  Farrar's  St.  Paid,  ch.  x-vi.,  for  a  more  minute 
account  of  the  wickedness  of  Antioch  than  we  can  give  in  this  place, 
He  well  remarks  :  "Cities  liable  to  the  influx  of  heterogeneous  races 
are  rarely  otherwise  than  immoral  and  debased.  Even  Rome  in  the 
decadence  of  its  Cfesarism  could  groan  to  think  of  the  dregs  of  its 
degradation — the  quacks  and  pandars,  and  mwsicians  and  dancing  girls 
— poured  into  the  Tiber  by  the  Syrian  Orontes.  ...  It  seems  as  though 
it  were  a  law  of  human  intercourse  that,  when  races  are  commingled  in 
large  masses,  the  worst  qualities  of  each  appear  intensified  in  the  general 
iniquity." 


xi.26.J  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  153 

one  element  of  life  and  hope  and  purity.  The  Jews  of 
Antioch  formed  a  large  society  in  that  city  governed  by 
their  own  laws  and  preserving  themselves  by  their 
peculiar  discipline  free  from  the  abounding  vices  of 
Oriental  paganism.  It  was  at  Antioch  as  it  was  at 
Alexandria  and  Damascus.  The  Jews  at  Alexandria 
had  their  alabarch  to  whom  they  owed  special  allegiance 
and  by  whom  alone  they  were  ruled ;  the  Jews  of 
Damascus  had  their  ethnarch  who  exercised  peculiar 
jurisdiction  over  them ;  and  so  too  had  the  Jews  of 
Antioch  a  peculiar  ruler  of  their  own,  forming  thus  an 
imperium  in  imperio  running  counter  to  our  Western 
notions  which  in  many  respects  demand  an  iron  uni- 
formity very  foreign  to  the  Eastern  mind,  and  show 
themselves  eminently  deficient  in  that  flexibility  and 
diversity  which  found  an  abundant  play  even  among 
the  arrangements  of  the  Roman  Empire. '^  This  Jewish 
quarter  of  Antioch  had  for  centuries  been  growing  and 
extending  itself,  and  its  chief  synagogue  had  been  glori- 
fied by  the  reception  of  some  of  the  choicest  temple 
spoils  which  the  kings  of  Syria  had  at  first  carried 
captive  from  Jerusalem  and  then  in  a  fit  of  repentance 
or  of  prudent  policy  had  bestowed  upon  the  Jewish 
colony  in  their  capital  city. 

Such  was  the  city  to  which  the  men  of  Cyprus  and 
Cyrene  were  now  carrying  the  news  of  the  gospel, 
intending,  doubtless,  to  tell  merely  their  Jewish  fellow- 
countrymen  and  religionists  of  the  Messiah  whose  love 
and  power  they  had  themselves   experienced.     Here, 

'  We  shall  have  frequent  occasions  to  notice  the  numerous  varieties 
of  mle,  privileges,  and  local  liberties  which  prevailed  under  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  Romans  seem  to  have  scrupulously  respected  ancient 
rights  and  customs  wherever  possible,  provided  only  the  supreme 
sovereignty  of  Rome  was  recognised. 


154  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

however,  they  were  met  by  the  startling  information 
from  Caesarea.  They  were,  however,  prepared  for  it. 
They  were  Hellenistic  Jews  like  St.  Stephen.  They 
had  listened  to  his  burning  words,  and  had  followed 
closely  his  epoch-making  speeches  whereby  he  con- 
founded the  Jews  and  clearly  indicated  the  opening  of 
a  new  era.  But  then  God's  dispensations  seemed  to 
have  terminated  his  teaching  and  put  a  fatal  end  to  the 
hopes  which  he  had  raised.  Men  then  misread  God's 
dealings  with  His  servants,  and  interpreted  His  ways 
amiss.  The  death  of  Stephen  seemed  perhaps  to  some 
minds  a  visible  condemnation  of  his  views,  when  in 
reality  it  was  the  direct  channel  by  which  God  would 
work  out  a  wider  propagation  of  them,  as  well  as  the 
conversion  of  the  agent  destined  to  ditfuse  them  most 
powerfully.  Apparent  defeat  is  not  always  permanent 
disaster,  whether  in  things  temporal  or  things  spiritual ; 
nay,  rather  the  temporary  check  may  be  the  necessary 
condition  of  the  final  and  glorious  victory.  So  it  was 
in  this  case,  as  the  men  of  Cyprus  and  Gyrene  proved, 
when  the  news  of  St.  Peter's  revelation  and  his  decisive 
action  arrived  and  they  realised  in  action  the  principles 
of  Catholic  Christianity  for  which  their  loved  teacher 
St.  Stephen  had  died.  And  their  brave  action  was  soon 
followed  by  blessed  success,  by  a  rich  harvest  of  souls  : 
"  The  hand  of  the  Lord  was  with  them  ;  and  a  great 
number  that  believed  turned  to  the  Lord."  Thus  were 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  headquarters,  the  mother 
Church  of  Gentile  Christianity. 

IV.  Now  we  come  to  another  step  in  the  development. 
Tidings  of  the  action  taken  at  Antioch  came  to  Jeru- 
salem. The  news  must  have  travelled  much  the  same 
road  as  that  by  whieh,  as  we  have  indicated,  the  story 
of  St.  Peter's  action  was  carried  to  Antioch.     The  inter- 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  15S 


course  between  Jerusalem  and  Antioch  was  frequent 
enough  by  land  or  by  sea ;  and  no  synagogue  and  no 
Jewish  society  was  more  liberal  in  its  gifts  towards 
the  support  of  the  supreme  council  and  hierarchy  at 
Jerusalem  than  the  Jewish  colony  and  its  synagogues 
at  Damascus.  And  the  old  custom  of  communication 
with  Jerusalem  naturally  led  the  Nazarenes  of  Antioch 
to  send  word  of  their  proceedings  up  to  the  apostles 
and  supreme  council  who  ruled  their  parent  society  in 
the  same  city.  We  see  a  clear  indication  that  the 
events  at  Antioch  happened  subsequently  to  those  at 
Caesarea  in  the  manner  in  which  the  news  was  received 
at  Jerusalem.  There  seems  to  have  been  no  strife,  no 
discussion,  no  controversy.  The  question  had  been 
already  raised  and  decided  after  St.  Peter's  return.  So 
the  apostles  simply  select  a  fitting  messenger  to  go 
forth  with  the  authority  of  the  apostles  and  to  complete 
the  work  which,  having  been  initiated  in  baptism,  merely 
now  demanded  that  imposition  of  hands  which,  as  we 
have  seen  in  the  case  of  the  Samaritan  converts,  was 
one  of  the  special  functions  of  the  apostles  and  chiefs 
of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem.  And  in  choosing  Barnabas 
the  apostles  made  a  wise  choice.  They  did  not  send 
one  of  the  original  Twelve,  because  not  one  of  them 
was  fitted  for  the  peculiar  work  now  demanded.  They 
were  all  narrow,  provincial,  untravelled,  devoid  of  that 
wide  and  generous  training  which  God  had  given  to 
Barnabas.  It  may  be  too  that  they  felt  restrained  from 
going  beyond  the  bounds  of  Canaan  before  the  twelve 
years  had  elapsed  of  which  ancient  Christian  tradition 
tells  as  the  limit  of  their  stay  in  Jerusalem  fixed  by  our 
Lord  Himself.^  He  was  a  Hellenistic  Jew,  and  he 
could  sympathise  with  the  wider  feelings  and  ideas  of 
'  See  Eusebius,  Eccles.  Hist.,  v.,  18. 


156  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Hellenists.  He  was  a  man  of  Cyprus,  a  friend  and 
perhaps  connexion  of  many,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles, 
among  those  whose  new-born  faith  and  hope  were  now 
in  question.  And  above  all  he  was  a  man  of  kindly 
heart  and  genial  temper  and  loving  thought  and  blessed 
charity,  fitted  to  soothe  jealousies  and  allay  suspicions, 
and  make  the  long  alienated  and  despised  Gentiles  feel 
at  home  in  the  Church  and  family  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Barnabas  was  a  person  peculiarly  fitted  to  prove  a 
mediator  and  uniting  link  in  a  society  where  divergent 
elements  found  a  place  and  asserted  themselves.  He 
was  not  the  man  to  take  a  new  step  or  to  have  decided 
the  question  of  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  if  it  had 
not  been  already  settled.  He  must  have  come  there- 
fore fortified  by  the  authority  of  the  apostles,  and  then, 
knowing  right  well  what  they  approved,  he  was  just 
the  man  to  carry  out  the  details  of  an  arrangement 
requiring  tact  and  skill  and  temper ;  though  he  was  by 
no  means  suited  to  decide  a  great  question  on  its  own 
merits  or  to  initiate  any  great  movement.  In  the 
Church  of  God  then,  as  in  the  Church  of  God  still,  there 
is  a  place  and  a  work  for  the  strong  man  of  keen  logic 
and  vigorous  intellect  and  profound  thought.  And  there 
is  too  a  place  and  a  work  for  the  man  of  loving  heart 
and  a  charity  which  evermore  delights  in  compromise. 
"  Barnabas,  when  he  was  come,  and  had  seen  the  grace 
of  God,  was  glad  ;  and  he  exhorted  them  all,  that  with 
purpose  of  heart  they  would  cleave  unto  the  Lord.  For 
he  was  a  good  man,  and  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
faith ;  and  much  people  was  added  unto  the  Lord." 
Barnabas  had  another  virtue  too.  He  knew  his  own 
weakness.  He  did  not  imagine  like  some  men  that  he 
was  specially  strong  where  he  was  eminently  weak. 
He  felt  his  want  of  the  active  vigorous  mind  of  his 


xi.26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  157 

friend  of  boyhood  the  new  convert  Saul.  He  knew 
where  he  was  hving  in  comparative  obscurity  and 
silence  ;  so  after  a  little  experience  of  the  atmosphere 
of  Antioch  he  departed  to  Tarsus  to  seek  for  him  and 
bring  him  back  where  a  great  work  was  awaiting  his 
peculiar  turn  of  mind.  There  is  an  ancient  historian 
of  Antioch  who  has  preserved  for  us  many  stories 
about  that  city  in  these  apostolic  and  even  in  much 
earHer  ages.  His  name  is  John  Malalas ;  he  lived 
about  six  hundred  years  after  Christ,  but  had  access  to 
many  ancient  documents  and  writers  that  are  no  longer 
known  to  us.  He  tells  us  many  things  about  the 
primitive  Church  of  Antioch.  He  has  his  own  version 
of  the  quarrel  between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter  which 
happened  in  that  city ;  and  he  fixes  even  the  very  spot 
where  St.  Paul  first  preached,  telling  us  that  its  name 
was  Singon  Street,  which  stood  near  the  Pantheon. 
This  may  seem  to  us  a  minuteness  of  detail  too  great 
to  be  believed.  But  then  we  must  remember  that 
John  Malalas  expressly  cites  ancient  chronologers  and 
historians  as  his  authorities,  and  he  himself  lived  while 
as  yet  Antioch  retained  all  the  ancient  arrangements  of 
streets  and  divisions.  And  surely  Saul,  as  he  travelled 
from  Tarsus  responding  at  once  to  the  call  of  Barnabas, 
must  have  seen  enough  to  stir  his  love  to  Christ 
and  to  souls  into  heartiest  exertion.  He  came 
doubtless  by  sea  and  landed  at  Seleucia,  the  port  of 
Antioch,  some  sixteen  miles  distant  from  the  city. 
As  he  travelled  up  to  Antioch  he  would  get  distant 
glimpses  of  the  groves  of  Daphne,  a  park  ten  miles 
in  circumference,  dedicated  indeed  to  the  poetic  worship 
of  Apollo,  but  dedicated  also  to  the  vilest  purposes  of 
wickedness  intimately  associated  with  that  poetic  wor- 
ship.    Poetry,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  can  be  very 


158  THE  ACTS   OF   THE  APOSTLES. 


blessed,  ennobling  and  elevating  man's  whole  nature. 
But  the  same  poetry,  as  in  ancient  paganism  and  in 
some  modern  writers,  can  become  a  festering  plague- 
spot,  the  abounding  source  to  its  votaries  of  moral 
corruption  and  spiritual  death.^ 

Daphne  and  its  associations  would  rouse  the  whole 
soul,  the  healthy  moral  nature  of  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
inherited  originally  from  his  ancient  Jewish  training, 
and  now  quickened  and  deepened  by  the  spiritual 
revelations  made  to  him  in  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  no 
wonder  then  that  here  we  read  of  St.  Paul's  first  long 
and  continuous  period  of  ministerial  work  :  "  It  came  to 
pass  that   even  for  a  whole  year  they  were  gathered 

'  There  is  a  good  description  of  Daphne  as  St.  Paul  may  have  seen 
it  in  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,  ch.  xxiii.  We  borrow  a  few  extracts 
from  it  to  give  a  more  vivid  idea  of  Antioch  in  St.  Paul's  day.  "  At 
the  distance  of  five  miles  from  Antioch  the  Macedonian  kings  of  Syria 
had  consecrated  to  Apollo  one  of  the  most  elegant  places  of  devotion  in 
the  pagan  world.  A  magnificent  temple  rose  in  honour  of  the  God  of 
light ;  and  his  colossal  figure  almost  filled  the  capacious  sanctuary  which 
was  enriched  with  gold  and  gems  and  adorned  by  the  skill  of  the 
Grecian  artists.  The  deity  was  represented  in  a  bending  attitude,  with 
a  golden  cup  in  his  hand,  pouring  out  a  libation  on  the  earth,  as  if  he 
supplicated  the  venerable  mother  to  give  to  his  arms  the  cold  and 
beauteous  Daphne ;  for  the  spot  was  ennobled  by  fiction,  and  the 
fancy  of  the  Syrian  poets  had  transported  the  amorous  tale  from  the 
banks  of  the  Perseus  to  the  town  of  the  Orontes."  "The  temple  and 
village  were  deeply  bosomed  in  a  thick  grove  of  laurels  and  cypresses, 
which  reached  as  far  as  a  circumference  of  ten  miles,  and  proved  in  the 
most  sultry  summers  a  cool  and  impenetrable  shade.  A  thousand 
streams  of  the  purest  water,  issuing  from  every  hill,  preserved  the 
verdure  of  the  earth  and  the  temperature  of  the  air ;  the  senses  were 
gratified  with  harmonious  sounds  and  aromatic  odours  ;  and  the  peaceful 
grove  was  consecrated  to  health  and  joy,  to  luxury  and  love.  The 
soldier  and  tli«  philosopher  wisely  avoided  the  temptations  of  this 
sensual  paradise,  where  pleasure,  assuming  the  character  of  religion, 
imperceptibly  dissolved  the  firmness  of  manly  virtue."  Gibbon's  notes 
abound  with  ample  proof  of  the  statements  he  makes.  To  them  we 
may  refer  the  reader  curious  about  the  details  of  ancient  p-iganism. 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  159 

together  with  the  Church,  and  taught  much  people." 
The  results  of  the  new  force  which  Barnabas  introduced 
into  the  spiritual  life  of  Antioch  soon  became  mani- 
fested. "  The  disciples  were  first  called  Christians  at 
Antioch."  Saul  of  Tarsus  possessed  what  Barnabas  did 
not  possess.  He  possessed  a  powerful,  a  logical,  and 
a  creative  intellect.  He  realised  from  the  beginning 
what  his  own  principles  meant  and  to  what  they  were 
leading  him.  He  taught  not  Judaism  or  the  Law  with  an 
addition  merely  about  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  He  troubled 
not  himself  about  circumcision  or  the  old  covenant, 
but  he  taught  from  the  very  beginning  Christ  Jesus, 
Christ  in  His  Divine  and  human  nature,  Christ  in  His 
various  offices,  Jesus  Christ  as  the  one  hope  for  man- 
kind. This  was  now  at  Antioch,  as  before  at  Damascus, 
the  staple  topic  of  St.  Paul's  preaching,  and  therefore 
the  Antiochenes,  with  their  ready  wit  and  proverbial 
power  of  giving  nicknames,  at  once  designated  the 
new  sect  not  Nazarenes  or  Galileans  as  the  Jews  of 
Jerusalem  called  them,  but  Christians  or  adherents  of 
Christ.^  Here,  however,  I  prefer  to  avail  myself  of  the 
exposition  which  one  of  the  great  spiritual  teachers  of 
the  last  generation  gave  us  of  this  expression.  The 
well-known  and  learned  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Dr. 
Trench,  in  his  Study  of  IVoj'ds  (21st  Ed. :  Lond.  1890), 

'  The  Antiochenes  were  always  famous  for  the  dangerous  power  of 
ridicule  and  giving  nicknames.  They  quarrelled  on  this  account  with  the 
emperors  Hadrian,  Verus,  Marcus,  Severus,  and  Julian.  The  last  men- 
tioned has  celebrated  these  tendencies  in  his  celebrated  treatise  entitled 
Misopogon,  or  the  Beard-hatei:  Even  in  its  final  overthrow  the  city  pre- 
served this  distinction.  In  the  year  540  the  Persian  king  Chosroes 
Nushirvan  took  it  by  storm.  When  he  appeared  before  the  city  he 
was  received  with  a  shower  of  arrows  mingled  with  obscene  sarcasms, 
which  so  enraged  him  that  he  removed  the  inhabitants  when  he  had 
taken  the  town  to  a  new  Antioch  in  the  province  of  Susa. 


i6o  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

p.  189,  thus  draws  out  the  lesson  connected  with  this 
word  and  the  time  of  its  appearance  :  "  '  The  disciples 
were  called  Christians  first  in  Antioch.'  That  we  have 
here  a  notice  which  we  would  not  willingly  have 
missed  all  will  acknowledge,  even  as  nothing  can  be 
otherwise  than  curious  which  relates  to  the  infancy  of 
the  Church.  But  there  is  here  much  more  than  a 
curious  notice.  Question  it  a  little  closer,  and  how 
much  it  will  be  found  to  contain,  how  much  which  it  is 
waiting  to  yield  up  !  What  light  it  throws  on  the 
whole  story  of  the  Apostolic  Church  to  know  where 
and  v,/hen  this  name  of  Christians  was  first  imposed 
on  the  faithful ;  for  imposed  by  adversaries  it  certainly 
was,  not  devised  by  themselves,  however  afterwards 
they  may  have  learned  to  glory  in  it  as  the  name  of 
highest  dignity  and  honour.  They  did  not  call  them- 
selves, but,  as  is  expressly  recorded,  they  '  were  called ' 
Christians  first  at  Antioch ;  in  agreement  with  which 
statement  the  name  occurs  nowhere  in  Scripture,  except 
on  the  lips  of  those  alien  from  or  opposed  to  the  faith 
(Acts  XX vi.  28;  I  Peter  iv.  16).  And  as  it  was  a 
name  imposed  by  adversaries,  so  among  these  adver- 
saries it  was  plainly  heathens,  and  not  Jews,  who  were 
its  authors ;  for  Jews  would  never  have  called  the 
followers  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  '  Christians,'  or  those 
of  Christ,  the  very  point  of  their  opposition  to  Him 
being,  that  He  was  not  the  Christ,  but  a  false  pretender 
to  the  name.  Starting  then  from  this  point  that 
'  Christians '  was  a  title  given  to  the  disciples  by  the 
heathen,  what  may  we  deduce  from  it  further  ?  At 
Antioch  they  first  obtained  this  name — at  the  city,  that 
is,  which  was  the  headquarters  of  the  Church's  mission 
to  the  heathen,  in  the  same  sense  as  Jerusalem  had 
been   the   headquarters    of  the  mission  to  the  seed  of 


xi.26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE  GENTILES.  i6i 

Abraham.     It  was  there  and  among  the  faithful  there 
that  a  conviction  of  the  world-wide  destination  of  the 
gospel  arose  ;    there   it  was   first   plainly  seen    as  in- 
tended   for   all    kindreds  of  the    earth.     Hitherto  the 
faithful  in  Christ  had  been  called  by  their  adversaries, 
and    indeed    were    often    still     called    '  Galileans '    or 
'  Nazarenes  * — both  names  which  indicated  the  Jewish 
cradle  wherein  the  Church  had  been  nursed,  and  that 
the  world    saw    in   the  new  society  no  more    than  a 
Jewish  sect.     But  it  was  plain   that  the   Church  had 
now,   even    in    the  world's    eyes,    chipped    its   Jewish 
shell.     The  name  Christians  or  those  of  Christ,  while 
it    told    that  Christ   and    the  confession    of  Him   was 
felt  even  by   the  heathen  to    be    the  sum    and  centre 
of   this    new    faith,    showed    also    that    they   compre- 
hended now,  not  all  which  the  Church  would  be,  but 
something   of   this ;    saw   this   much,   namely,   that    it 
was    no  mere   sect    and    variety   of    Judaism,    but   a 
Society    with    a    mission    and    a    destiny    of  its    own. 
Nor  will  the  thoughtful  reader  fail  to  observe  that  the 
coming  up   of  this   name   is    by  closest  juxtaposition 
connected    in    the    sacred    narrative,    and    still     more 
closely  in    the   Greek   than 'in    the   English,   with   the 
arrival  at  Antioch,   and   with  the  preaching  there,   of 
that  Apostle  who  was  God's  appointed  instrument  for 
bringing  the  Church  to  a  full  sense  that  the  message 
which  it  had  was  not  for  some  men  only,  but  for  all. 
As  so  often  happens  with  the  rise  of  new  names,  the 
rise  of  this  one  marked  a  new  epoch  in  the  Church's 
life,   and  that   it  was  entering   upon    a  new  stage  of 
development."     This  is  a  long  extract,  but  it  sets  forth 
in  dignified  and  aptly  chosen    words,  such    as  Arch- 
bishop Trench  always  used,  the  important  lessons  which 
the  thoughtful   student  of  the  Acts  may  gather  from 

VOL.  Hi  II 


1 62  THE  ACTS   OF   THE   APOSTLES. 

the  time  and  place  where  the  term  "  Christians  "  first 
sprang  into  existence. 

Finally,  we  notice  in  connexion  with  Antioch  that 
the  foundation  of  the  great  Gentile  Church  was 
marked  by  the  same  universal  impulse  which  we 
trace  wherever  Christ  was  effectually  preached.  The 
faith  of  the  Crucified  evermore  produced  love  to  the 
brethren.  Agabus,  a  prophet  whom  we  shall  again 
meet  many  years  after  in  the  course  of  St.  Paul's 
life,  and  who  then  predicted  his  approaching  arrest 
and  captivity  at  Jerusalem,  made  his  earliest  recorded 
appearance  at  Antioch,  where  he  announced  an  impend- 
ing famine.  Agabus  exercised  the  office  of  a  prophet, 
which  implied  under  the  New  Dispensation  rather 
the  office  of  preaching  than  of  prediction.  Prediction, 
indeed,  whether  under  the  Old  or  the  New  Dispensa- 
tion, formed  but  a  small  portion  of  the  prophetical 
office.  The  work  of  the  prophet  was  pre-eminently 
that  of  telling  forth  God's  will  and  enforcing  it  upon 
a  careless  generation.  Occasionally  indeed,  as  in  the 
case  of  Agabus,  that  telling  forth  involved  prediction  or 
announcement  of  God's  chastisements  and  visitations  ; 
but  far  oftener  the  prophet's  work  was  finished  when 
he  enforced  the  great  principles  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness as  the  Christian  preacher  does  still.  Agabus 
seems  to  have  been  specially  gifted  in  the  direction 
of  prediction.  He  announced  a  famine  as  impending 
over  the  whole  world,  which  came  to  pass  in  the  age  of 
Claudius,  offering  to  the  Gentile  Church  of  Antioch  an 
opportunity,  of  which  they  gladly  availed  themselves, 
to  repay  somewhat  of  the  spiritual  obligation  which  the 
Gentiles  owed  to  the  Jews  according  to  St.  Paul's  own 
rule  :  "  If  the  Gentiles  have  been  made  partakers  of 
their   spiritual    things,    they   owe  it   to  them    also    to 


xi.  26.]  THE  HARVEST  OF  THE   GENTILES.  163 

minister  unto  them  in  carnal  things."  ^  We  can  trace 
here  the  force  and  power  of  ancient  Jewish  customs. 
We  can  see  how  the  mould  and  form  and  external  shape 
of  the  Church  was  gained  from  the  Jew.  The  Jewish 
colony  of  Antioch  had  been  of  old  famous  for  the 
liberality  of  its  gifts  to  the  mother  community  at 
Jerusalem.  The  predominant  element  in  the  Church 
of  Antioch  was  now  Gentile,  but  still  the  ancient 
customs  prevailed.  The  Gentile  Christian  community 
acted  towards  the  Jerusalem  Church  as  the  Jewish 
community  had  been  used  to  treat  their  countrymen  : 
"The  disciples,  every  man  according  to  his  ability, 
determined  to  send  relief  unto  the  brethren  that  dwelt 
in  Judaea :  which  also  they  did,  sending  it  to  the  elders 
by  the  hand  of  Barnabas  and  Saul," 

'  This  famine  is  thoroughly  historical.  It  is  noticed  by  several  who 
wrote  of  this  time,  as  Dion,  Ix.,  11  ;  Suetonius,  Claud.,  20;  Aurelius, 
Victor;  and  is  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  the  coins  :  see  Eckhel,  vi., 
238,  239,  240.     Cf.  Lewin's  Fasti  Sacri,  p.  274,  A.D.  42. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE    DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE. 

"  Now  about  that  time  Herod  the  king  put  forth  his  hands  to  afflict 
certain  of  the  Church.  And  he  killed  James  the  brother  of  John 
with  the  sword.  And  when  he  saw  that  it  pleased  the  Jews,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  seize  Peter  also.  .  .  .  Immediately  au  angel  of  the  Lord 
smote  Herod,  because  he  gave  not  God  the  glory  :  and  he  was  eaten 
of  worms,  and  gave  up  the  ghost.  But  the  word  of  God  grew  and 
multiplied."— Acts  xii.  1-3,  23-24. 

THE  chapter  at  which  we  have  now  arrived  is  very 
important  from  a  chronological  point  of  view,  as 
it  brings  the  sacred  narrative  into  contact  with  the 
affairs  of  the  external  world  concerning  which  we  have 
independent  knowledge.  The  history  of  the  Christian 
Church  and  of  the  outside  world  for  the  first  time  clearly 
intersect,  and  we  thus  gain  a  fixed  point  of  time  to 
which  we  can  refer.  This  chronological  character  of 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Acts  arises  from  its  intro- 
duction of  Herod  and  the  narrative  of  the  second 
notable  persecution  which  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  had 
to  endure.  The  appearance  of  a  Herod  on  the  scene 
and  the  tragedy  in  which  he  was  the  actor  demand  a 
certain  amount  of  historical  explanation,  for,  as  we  have 
already  noted  in  the  case  of  St.  Stephen  five  or  six 
years  previously,  Roman  procurators  and  Jewish  priests 
and  the  Sanhedrin  then  possessed  or  at  least  used  the 
power  of  the  sword  in  Jerusalem,  while  a  word  had  not 
been  heard  of  a  Herod  exercising  capital  jurisdiction 

164 


xii.  1-3, 23-24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  165 


in  Judaea  for  more  than  forty  years.  Wlio  was  this 
Herod  ?  Whence  came  he  ?  How  does  he  emerge  so 
suddenly  upon  the  stage  ?  As  great  confusion  exists 
in  the  minds  of  many  Bible  students  about  the  rami- 
fications of  the  Herodian  fam.ily  and  the  various  offices 
and  governments  they  held,  we  must  make  a  brief 
digression  in  order  to  show  Vv^ho  and  whence  this  Herod 
was  concerning  whom  we  are  told,  "  Now  about  that 
time  Herod  the  king  put  forth  his  hands  to  afflict  certain 
of  the  Church." 

This  Herod  Agrippa  was  a  grandson  of  Herod  the 
Great,  and  displayed  in  the  solitary  notice  of  him  which 
Holy  Scripture  has  handed  down  many  of  the  charac- 
teristics, cruel,  bloodthirsty  and  yet  magnificent,  which 
that  celebrated  sovereign  manifested  throughout  his 
life.^  The  story  of  Herod  Agvippa  his  grandson  was 
a  real  romance.  He  made  trial  of  every  station  in  life. 
He  had  been  at  times  a  captive,  at  times  a  conqueror. 
He  had  at  various  periods  experience  of  a  prison  house 
and  of  a  throne.  He  had  felt  the  depths  of  poverty, 
and  had  not  known  where  to  borrow  money  sufficient 

'  The  Herodian  family  form  a  notable  instance  of  the  modern  doctrine 
of  heredity,  which  yet  is  only  tlie  ancient  principle  of  Divine  action  an- 
nounced long  ago  in  the  Second  Commandment,  "Visiting  the  sins  of 
the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation."  The 
moral  taints  which  we  behold  in  Esau,  passion,  self-indulgence  quenching 
all  forethought,  ostentation  joined  with  magnificent  generosity,  dis- 
played themselves  in  Herod  the  Great.  In  him  they  were  joined  with 
absolute  power,  and  they  produced  their  natural  results.  They  made 
his  heart,  his  life,  his  home  a  howling  wilderness,  and  handed  down  to 
his  descendants  a  legacy  of  wickedness  which  ceased  not  to  bear  fruit 
so  long  as  his  name  survived.  Herod's  family  cruelties  were  so  cele- 
brated that  we  are  told  by  a  pagan  writer,  named  Macrobius,  that 
when  the  Emperor  Augustus  heard  of  the  slaughter  of  the  innocents  of 
Bethlehem,  thinking  they  were  Herod's  children,  he  jokingly  said,  " 
were  better  to  be  Herod's  pigs  than  Herod's  children." 


1 66  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  pay  his  way  to  Rome.  He  had  tasted  of  the  sweet- 
ness of  affluence,  and  had  enjoyed  the  pleasures  of 
magnificent  Hving.  He  had  been  a  subject  and  a  ruler, 
a  dependant  on  a  tyrant,  and  the  trusted  friend  and 
councillor  of  emperors.  His  story  is  worth  telling. 
He  was  born  about  ten  years  before  the  Christian  era, 
and  was  the  son  of  Aristobulus,  one  of  the  sons  of 
Herod  the  Great.  After  the  death  of  Herod,  his  grand- 
father, the  Herodian  family  was  scattered  all  over  the 
world.  Some  obtained  official  positions  ;  others  were 
obliged  to  shift  for  themselves,  depending  on  the  frag- 
ments of  the  fortune  which  the  great  king  had  left  them. 
Agrippa  lived  at  Rome  till  about  the  year  30  a.d.,  asso- 
ciating with  Drusus,  the  son  of  the  Emperor  Tiberius, 
by  whom  he  was  led  into  the  wildest  extravagance. 
He  was  banished  from  Rome  about  that  year,  and  was 
obliged  to  retire  to  Palestine,  contenting  himself  with 
the  small  official  post  of  iEdile  of  Tiberias  in  Galilee, 
given  him  by  his  uncle  Herod  Antipas,  which  he  held 
about  the  time  when  our  Lord  was  teaching  in  that 
neighbourhood.  During  the  next  six  years  the  fortunes 
of  Agrippa  were  of  the  most  chequered  kind.  He  soon 
quarrelled  with  Antipas,  and  is  next  found  a  fugitive  at 
the  court  of  Antioch  with  the  Prefect  of  the  East.  He 
there  borrowed  from  a  money-lender  the  sum  of  iJ^Soo 
at  I2i  per  cent,  interest,  to  enable  him  to  go  to  Rome 
and  push  his  interests  at  the  imperial  court.  He  was 
arrested,  however,  for  a  large  debt  due  to  the  Treasury 
just  when  he  was  embarking,  and  consigned  to  prison, 
whence  the  very  next  day  he  managed  to  escape,  and 
fled  to  Alexandria.  There  he  again  raised  another 
timely  loan,  and  thus  at  last  succeeded  in  getting  to 
Rome.  Agrippa  attached  himself  to  Caligula,  the  heir 
of  the  empire,  and  after  various  chances  was  appointed 


xii.  1-3,  23-24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  167 

by  him  King  of  Trachonitis,  a  dominion  which  Caligula 
and  subsequently  Claudius  enlarged  by  degrees,  till  in 
the  year  41  he  was  invested  with  the  kingdom  of  the 
whole  of  Palestine,  including  Galilee,  Samaria,  and 
Judaea,  of  which  Agrippa  proceeded  to  take  formal  pos- 
session about  twelve  months  before  the  events  recorded 
in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Acts.-^ 

Herod's  career  had  been  marked  by  various  changes, 
but  in  one  respect  he  had  been  consistent.  He  was 
ever  a  thorough  Jew,  and  a  vigorous  and  useful  friend 
to  his  fellow-countrymen.  We  have  already  noticed 
that  his  influence  had  been  used  with  Caligula  to 
induce  the  Emperor  to  forgo  his  mad  project  of  erect- 
ing his  statue  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  at  Jerusalem.'^ 
Herod  had,  however,  one  great  drawback  in  the  eyes  of 
the  priestly  faction  at  Jerusalem.  All  the  descendants 
of  Herod  the  Great  were  tainted  by  their  Edomite 
blood,  which  they  inherited  through  him.  Their  kind 
offices  and  support  were  accepted  indeed,  but  only 
grudgingly.  Herod  felt  this,  and  it  was  quite  natural 
therefore  for  the  newly  appointed  king  to  strive  to  gain 
all  the  popularity  he  could  with  the  dominant  party 
at  Jerusalem  by  persecuting  the  new  sect  which  was 
giving  them  so  much  trouble.  No  incident  could 
possibly  have  been  more  natural,  more  consistent  with 
the  facts  of  history,  as  well  as  with  the  known  disposi- 
tions and  tendencies  of  human  nature,  than  that 
recorded  in  these  words — "  Now  about  that  time  Herod 
the  king  put  forth  his  hands  to  afflict  certain  of  the 
Church.  And  he  killed  James  the  brother  of  John 
with  the  sword."     Herod's  act  was  a  very  poUtic  one 


'  See  Lewin's  Fasti  Sacri,  a.d.  41,  p.  271,  for  the  auihorities  on  the 
subject  of  Herod's  career. 
^  See  p.  95  above. 


i68  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

from  a  worldly  point  of  view.  It  was  a  hard  dose 
enough  for  the  Jewish  people  to  swallow,  to  find  a  king 
imposed  upon- them  by  an  idolatrous  Gentile  power; 
but  it  was  some  alleviation  of  their  lot  that  the  king 
was  a  Jew,  and  a  Jew  so  devoted  to  the  service  of  the 
ruling  hierarchy  that  he  was  willing  to  use  his  secular 
power  to  crush  the  troublesome  Nazarene  sect  whose 
doctrine  threatened  for  ever  to  destroy  all  hopes  of  a 
temporal  restoration  for  Israel.  Such  being  the  histori- 
cal setting  of  the  picture  presented  to  us,  let  us  apply 
ourselves  to  the  spiritual  application  and  lessons  of  this 
incident  in  apostolic  history.  We  have  here  a  martyr- 
dom, a  deliverance,  and  a  Divine  judgment,  which  will 
all  repay  careful  study. 

I.  A  martyrdom  is  here  brought  under  our  notice, 
and  that  the  first  martyrdom  among  the  apostles. 
Stephen's  was  the  first  Christian  martyrdom,  but  that 
of  James  was  the  first  apostolic  martyrdom.  When 
Herod,  following  his  grandfather's  footsteps,  would 
afQict  the  Church,  "  he  killed  James  the  brother  of  John 
with  the  sword."  We  must  carefully  distinguish 
between  two  martyrs  of  the  same  name  who  have  both 
found  a  place  in  the  commemorations  of  Christian 
hope  and  love.  May-day  is  the  feast  devoted  to 
the  memory  of  St.  Philip  and  St.  James,  July  25  th 
is  the  anniversary  consecrated  to  the  memorial  of 
St.  James  the  Apostle,  whose  death  is  recorded  in  the 
passage  now  under  consideration.  The  latter  was  the 
brother  of  John  and  son  of  Zebedee ;  the  former  was, 
the  brother  or  cousin  according,  to  the  flesh  of  our 
Lord.  St,  James  the  Apostle  perished  early  in  the 
Church's  history.  St.  James  the  Just  flourished  for 
more  than  thirty  years  after  the  Resurrection.  He 
lived  indeed  to  a  comparatively  advanced  period  of  the 


xii.  1-3, 23-24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  169 


Church's  history,  as  is  manifest  from  a  study  of  the 
Epistle  which  he  wrote  to  the  Jewish  Christians  of 
the  Dispersion.  He  there  rebukes  shortcomings  and 
faults,  respect  for  the  rich  and  contempt  of  the  poor, 
oppression  and  outrage  and  irreverence,  which  could 
never  have  found  place  in  that  first  burst  of  love 
and  devotion  to  God  which  the  age  of  our  Herodian 
martyr  witnessed,  but  must  have  been  the  outcome  of 
long  years  of  worldly  prosperity  and  ease.  James  the 
Just,  the  stern  censor  of  Christian  morals  and  customs, 
whose-  language  indeed  in  its  severity  has  at  times 
caused  one-sided  and  narrow  Christians  much  trouble, 
must  often  have  looked  back  with  regret  and  longing  to 
the  purer  days  of  charity  and  devotion  when  James  the 
brother  of  John  perished  by  the  sword  of  Herod. 

Again,  we  notice  about  this  martyred  apostle  that, 
though  there  is  very  little  told  us  concerning  his  life  and 
actions,  he  must  have  been  a  very  remarkable  man. 
He  was  clearly  remarkable  for  his  Christian  privileges. 
He  was  one  of  the  apostles  specially  favoured  by  our 
Lord.  He  was  admitted  by  Him  into  the  closest 
spiritual  converse.  Thus  we  find  that,  with  Peter  and 
John,  James  the  Apostle  was  one  of  the  three  selected 
by  our  Lord  to  behold  the  first  manifestion  of  His 
power  over  the  realms  of  the  dead  v;hen  He  restored 
the  daughter  of  Jairus  to  life ;  with  the  same  two,  Peter 
and  John,  he  was  privileged  to  behold  our  Saviour 
receive  the  first  foretaste  of  His  heavenly  glory  upon 
the  Mount  of  Transfiguration ;  and  with  them  too  he 
was  permitted  to  behold  his  great  Master  drink  the  first 
draught  of  the  cup  of  agony  in  the  Garden  of  Gethse- 
mane.  James  the  Apostle  had  thus  the  first  necessary 
qualification  for  an  eminent  worker  in  the  Lord's 
vineyard.     He  had   been  admitted  into  Christ's  most 


I70  THE  ACTS   OF   THE  APOSTLES. 

intimate  friendship,  he  knew  much  of  his  Lord's  will 
and  mind.  And  the  privileges  thus  conferred  upon 
St.  James  had  not  been  misused  or  neglected.  He  did 
not  hide  his  talent  in  the  dust  of  idleness,  nor  wrap  it 
round  with  the  mantle  of  sloth.  He  utilised  his  advan- 
tages. He  became  a-foremost,  if  not  indeed  the  foremost 
worker  for  his  loved  Lord  in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem, 
as  is  intimated  by  the  opening  words  of  this  passage, 
which  tells  us  that  when  Herod  wished  to  harass  and 
vex  the  Church  he  selected  James  the  brother  of  John 
as  his  victim  ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  with  the  keen 
instinct  of  a  persecutor  Herod  selected  not  the  least 
prominent  and  useful,  but  the  most  devoted  and  energetic 
champion  of  Christ  to  satisfy  his  cruel  purpose.  And 
yet,  though  James  was  thus  privileged  and  thus  faith- 
ful and  thus  honoured  by  God,  his  active  career  is 
shrouded  thick  round  with  elouds  and  darkness.  We 
know  nothing  of  the  good  works  and  brave  deeds  and 
powerful  sermons  he  devoted  to  his  Master's  cause. 
We  are  told  simply  of  the  death  by  which  he  glorified 
God.  All  else  is  hidden  with  God  till  that  day  when 
the  secret  thoughts  and  deeds  of  every  man  shall  be 
revealed.  This  incident  in  early  Apostolic  Church 
history  is  a  very  typical  one,  and  teaches  many  a 
lesson  very  necessary  for  these  times  and  for  all  times. 
If  an  apostle  so  privileged  and  so  faithful  was  content 
to  do  his  work,  and  then  to  pass  away  without  a  single 
line  of  memorial,  a  single  word  to  keep  his  name  or  his 
labours  fresh  among  men,  how  much  more  may  we, 
petty,  faithless,  trifling  as  we  are,  be  contented  to 
do  our  duty,  and  to  pass  away  without  any  public 
recognition  !  And  yet  how  we  all  do  crave  after  such 
recognition  !  How  intensely  we  long  for  human  praise 
and  approval !     How  useless  we  esteem   our  labours 


xii.  1-3,23-24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  171 

unless  they  are  followed  by  it !  How  inclined  we  are 
to  make  the  fallible  judgment  of  man  the  standard  by 
which  we  measure  our  actions,  instead  of  having  the 
mind's  eye  ever  steadily  fixed  as  James  the  brother  of 
John  had  on  His  approval  alone  who,  now  seeing  our 
secret  trials,  struggles,  efforts,  will  one  day  reward 
His  faithful  followers  openly  !  This  is  one  great  lesson 
which  this  typical  passage  by  its  silence  as  well  as  by 
its  speech  clearly  teaches  the  Church  of  every  age.^ 

Again,  this  martyrdom  of  St.  James  proclaims  yet 
another  lesson.  God  hereby  warns  the  Church  against 
the  idolatry  of  human  agents,  against  vain  trust  in 
human  support.  Let  us  consider  the  circumstances  of 
the  Church  at  that  time.  The  Church  had  just  passed 
through  a  season  of  violent  persecution,  and  had  lost 
one  of  its  bravest  and  foremost  soldiers  in  the  person  of 
Stephen,  the  martyred  deacon.  And  now  there  was 
impending  over  the  Church  what  is  often  more  trying 
far  than  a  time  short  and  sharp  of  violence  and  blood, 
— a  period  of  temporal  distress  and  suffering,  trying 
the  principles  and  testing  the  endurance  of  the  weaker 
brethren  in  a  thousand  petty  trifles.  It  was  a  time 
when  the  courage,  the  wisdom,  the  experience  of  the 
tried  and  trusted  leaders  would  be  specially  required 
to  guide  the  Church    amid    the    many  new  problems 

'  The  tradition  of  the  second  century  has  only  one  story  to  tell 
about  this  martyrdom.  We  find  it  in  Eusebius.  H.  E.,  ii.,  9,  where  we 
read  :  *'  Concerning  this  James  Clement  hands  down  a  story  worthy  of 
remembrance  in  the  seventh  book  of  his  Hypotyposes  (or  Outlines) 
delivering  it  from  the  traditions  of  his  predecessors,  that  the  messenger 
who  led  him  to  the  judgment-seat,  beholding  his  witness,  was  moved  to 
confess  himself  a  Christian.  Both  were  therefore  led  away,  says  he, 
and  on  the  road  (to  execution)  he  asked  forgiveness  from  James. 
And  he,  having  considered  for  a  little,  said,  Peace  be  to  thee,  and  he 
kissed  him  tenderly.     And  thus  both  were  beheaded  together." 


172  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


which  day  by  clay  were  cropping  up.  And  yet  it  was 
just  then,  at  such  a  crisis,  that  the  Lord  permits  the 
bloody  sword  of  Herod  to  be  stretched  forth,  and 
removes  one  of  the  very  chiefest  champions  of  the  Chris- 
tian host  just  when  his  presence  seemed  most  necessary. 
It  must  have  appeared  a  dark  and  trying  dispensation  to 
the  Church  of  that  day ;  but  though  attended  doubtless 
with  some  present  drawbacks  and  apparent  disadvan- 
tages, it  was  well  and  wisely  done  to  warn  the  Church 
of  every  age  against  mere  human  dependence,  mere 
temporal  refuges  ;  teaching  by  a  typical  example  that 
it  is  not  by  human  might  or  earthly  wisdom,  not  by  the 
eloquence  of  man  or  the  devices  of  earth  that  Christ's 
Church  and  people  must  be  saved  ;  that  it  is  by  His 
own  right  hand,  and  by  His  own  holy  arm  alone  our 
God  will  get  Himself  the  victory. 

Yet  again  we  may  learn  from  this  incident  another 
lesson  rich  laden  with  comfort  and  instruction.  This 
martyrdom  of  St.  James  throws  us  back  upon  a  circum- 
stance which  occurred  during  our  Lord's  last  journey 
to  Jerusalem  before  His  crucifixion,  and  interprets  it 
for  us.  Let  us  recall  it.  Our  Lord  was  going  up  to 
Jerusalem,  and  His  disciples  were  following  Him  with 
wondering  awe.  The  shadow  of  the  Cross  projecting 
itself  forward  made  itself  unconsciously  felt  throughout 
the  little  company,  and  men  were  astonished,  though 
they  knew  not  why.  They  simply  felt,  as  men  do  on  a 
close  sultry  summer's  day  when  a  thunderstorm  is  over- 
head, that  something  awful  was  impending.  They  had, 
however,  a  vague  feeling  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
would  shortly  appear,  and  so  the  mother  of  Zebedee's 
children,  with  all  that  boldness  which  affection  lends  to 
feminine  minds,  drew  near  and  strove  to  secure  a  boon 
before  all  others  for  her  own  children.      She  prayed 


xii.  1-3, 23-24.]        THE  DEFEAT   OF  PRIDE.  173 

that  to  her  two  sons  might  be  granted  the  posts  of 
honour  m  the  temporal  kingdom  she  thought  of  as  now 
drawing  so  very  near.  The  Lord  replied  to  her  request 
in  very  deep  and  far-reaching  language,  the  meaning 
of  which  she  then  understood  not,  but  learned  after- 
wards through  the  discipline  of  pain  and  sorrow  and 
death  :  "  Ye  know  not  what  ye  ask.  Are  ye  able  to 
drink  the  cup  that  I  am  about  to  drink  ?  "  And  then, 
when  James  and  John  had  professed  their  ability,  he 
predicts  their  future  fate  :  "  My  cup  indeed  ye  shall 
drink."  The  mother  and  the  sons  alike  spoke  bold 
words,  and  offered  a  sincere  but  an  ignorant  prayer. 
Little  indeed  did  the  mother  dream  as  she  presented 
her  petition — "  Command  that  these  my  two  sons  may 
sit,  one  on  Thy  right  hand,  and  one  on  Thy  left  hand  in 
Thy  kingdom  " — how  that  prayer  would  be  answered, 
and  yet  answered  it  was.  To  the  one  son,  James,  was 
granted  the  one  post  of  honour.  He  was  made  to  sit 
on  the  Master's  right  hand,  for  he  was  the  first  of  the 
apostles  called  to  enter  into  Paradise  through  a  baptism 
of  blood.  While  to  the  other  son,  St.  John,  was  granted 
the  other  post  of  honour,  for  he  was  left  the  longest 
upon  earth  to  guide,  direct,  and  sustain  the  Church  by 
his  inspired  ~  wisdom,  large  experience,  and  apostolic 
authority.^  The  contrast  between  the  prayer  offered 
up  to  Christ  in  ignorance  and  shortsightedness  and  the 

•  Bishop  Lightfoot,  in  his 'celebrated  essay  on  the  Christian  Ministry, 
Philippians,  pp.  200 — 205,  2nd  edition,  regards  Episcopacy  as  the  work 
of  St.  John.  "By  whom  was  the  new  constitution  organised?  To 
this  question  only  one  answer  can  be  given.  Tliis  great  work  must  be 
ascribed  to  the  surviving  apostles.  St.  John  especially,  who  built  up 
the  speculative  theology  of  the  Church,  was  mainly  instrumental  in  com- 
pleting its  external  constitution  also,  for  Asia  Minor  was  the  centre 
from  which  the  new  movement  spread."  These  words  occur  in  his 
analysis  of  Rothe's  views,  with  which  Dr.  Lightfoot  subsiantially  agrees. 


174  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

manner  in  which  the  same  prayer  was  answered  in 
richest  abundance  suggests  to  us  the  comforting  reflec- 
tion that  no  prayer  offered  up  in  sincerity  and  truth  is 
ever  really  left  unanswered.  We  may  indeed  never  see 
how  the  prayer  is  answered.  The  mother  of  St.  James 
may  little  have  dreamt  as  she  beheld  her  son's  lifeless 
body  brought  home  to  her  that  this  trying  dispensation 
was  a  real  answer  to  her  ambitious  petition.  But  we 
can  now  see  that  it  was  so,  and  can  thus  learn  a  lesson 
of  genuine  confidence,  of  holy  boldness,  of  strong  faith  in 
the  power  of  sincere  and  loving  communion  with  God. 
Let  us  only  take  care  to  cultivate  the  same  spirit  of 
genuine  humility  and  profound  submission  which  pos- 
sessed the  souls  of  those  primitive  Christians  enabling 
them  to  say,  no  matter  how  their  petitions  were  answered, 
whether  in  joy  or  sorrow,  in  smiles  or  tears,  in  riches  or 
poverty,  "  Not  my  will,  but  thine,  O  Lord,  be  done." 

IL  We  have  again  in  this  twelfth  chapter  the  record 
of  a  Divine  deliverance.  Herod,  seeing  that  the  Jewish 
authorities  were  pleased  because  they  had  now  a 
sympathetic  ruler  who  understood  their  religious 
troubles  and  was  resolved  to  help  in  quelling  them, 
determined  to  proceed  farther  in  the  work  of  repression. 
He  arrested  another  prominent  leader,  St.  Peter,  and 
cast  him  into  prison.  The  details  are  given  to  us  of 
Herod's  action  and  Peter's  arrest.  Peter  was  now 
making  his  first  acquaintance  with  Roman  methods  of 
punishment.  He  had  been  indeed  previously  arrested 
and  imprisoned,  but  his  arrest  had  been  carried  out 
by  the  Jewish  authorities,  and  he  had  been  consigned 
to  the  care  of  the  Temple  police,  and  had  occupied  the 
Temple  prison.  But  Herod,  though  a  strict  Jew  in 
religion,  had  been  thoroughly  Romanised  in  matters 
of  rule  and  government,  and  therefore  he  treated  St. 


xii.  1-3, 23-24.]        THE   DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE  175 

Peter  after  the  Roman  fashion :  "  When  he  had  taken 
him,  he  put  him  in  prison,  and  deUvered  him  to  four 
quarternions  of  soldiers  to  guard  him ;  intending  after 
the  Passover  to  bring  him  forth  to  the  people."  He 
was  delivered  to  sixteen  men,  who  divided  the  night ' 
into  four  watches,  four  men  watching  at  a  time,  after 
the  Roman  method  of  discipline.^  And  then,  in  contrast 
to  all  this  preparation,  we  are  told  how  the  Church 
betook  herself  to  her  sure  refuge  and  strong  tower  of 
defence :  "  Peter  therefore  was  kept  in  prison ;  but 
prayer  was  made  earnestly  of  the  Church  unto  God 
for  him."  These  early  Christians  had  not  had  their 
faith  limited  or  weakened  by  discussions  whether 
petition  for  temporal  blessings  were  a  proper  subject 
of  prayer,  or  whether  spiritual  blessings  did  not 
alone  supply  true  matter  for  supplication  before  the 
Divine  throne.  They  were  in  the  first  fervour  of  Chris- 
tian love,  and  they  did  not  theorise,  define,  or  debate 
about  prayer  and  its  efficacy.  They  only  knew  that 
their  Master  had  told  them  to  pray,  and  had  promised 
to  answer  sincere  prayer,  as  He  alone  knew  how ;  and 
so  they  gathered  themselves  in  instant  ceaseless  prayer 
at  the  foot  of  the  throne  of  grace.  I  say  "  ceaseless  " 
prayer  because  it  seems  that  the  Jerusalem  Church,  feel- 
ing its  danger,  organised  a  continuous  service  of  prayer. 
"  Prayer  was  made  earnestly  of  the  Church  unto  God 
for  him  "  is  the  statement  of  the  fifth  verse,  and  then 
when  St.  Peter  was  released  "he  came  to  the  house 
of  Mary,  where  many  were  gathered  together  and 
were  praying,"  though  the  night  must  have  been  far 
advanced.     The  crisis  was  a  terrible  one  ;  the  foremost 

*  These  elaborate  precautions  were  doubtless  taken  on  account  of  1 
his  escape  on  the  previous  occasion,  when  the  Sanhedrin  had  arrested  ! 
him,  as  narrated  in  the  nineteenth  vei-se  of  the  fitth  chapter. 


176  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


champion,  St.  James,  had  been  taken,  and  now  another 
great  leader  was  threatened,  and  therefore  the  Church 
flung  herself  at  the  feet  of  the  Master  seeking  deliver- 
ance, and  was  not  disappointed,  as  the  Church  has  never 
since  been  disappointed  when  she  has  cast  herself  in 
lowliness  and  profound  submission  before  the  same  holy 
sanctuary/  The  narrative  then  proceeds  to  give  us  the 
particulars  of  St.  Peter's  deliverance,  as  St.  Peter  him- 
self seems  to  have  told  it  to  St.  Luke,  for  we  have 
details  given  us  which  could  only  have  come  either 
directly  or  indirectly  from  the  person  most  immediately 
concerned.  But  of  these  we  shall  treat  in  a  little. 
The  story  now  introduces  the  supernatural,  and  for 
the  believer  this  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  facts  of 
the  case.  A  great  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  Jeru- 
salem Church  has  arrived.  The  mother  Church  of 
all  Christendom,  the  fountain  and  source  of  original 
Christianity,  is  threatened  with  extinction.  The  life 
of  the  greatest  existing  leader  of  that  Church  is  at 
stake,  and  that  before  his  work  is  done.  The  very 
existence  of  the  Christian  revelation  seems  imperilled, 
and  God  sends  forth  an  angel,  a  heavenly  messenger, 
to  rescue  His  endangered  servant,  and  to  prove  to 
unbelieving  Jew,  to  the  haughty  Herod,  and  to  the 
frightened  but  praying  disciples  ahke  the  care  which 
He  ever  exercises  over  His  Church  and  people.     Here, 

'  In  the  fifth  century  an  order  of  monks  was  established  at  Constanti- 
nople who  practised  this  ceaseless  worship.  They  were  called  Acoi- 
metse,  or  the  Watchers.  They  are  described  at  length  in  Bingham's 
Antiquities,  Book  VII.,  ch.  ii.,  sect.  lo,  and  in  Smith's  Diet.  Christ. 
Antiqq.,  vol.  i.,  p.  13.  A  similar  attempt  was  made  in  the  reigns 
of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  by  the  well-known  Nicholas  Ferrar  in  a 
monastic  institution  which  he  planned  in  connection  with  the  Church 
of  England  :  see  the  article  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography 
upon  his  name. 


xii.  1-3, 23,  24.]       THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  177 

however,  a  question  may  be  raised.  Flow  was  it  that 
an  angel,  a  supernatural  messenger,  was  despatched  to 
the  special  rescue  of  St.  Peter  ?  Why  was  not  the 
same  assistance  vouchsafed  to  St.  James  who  had  just 
been  put  to  death  ?  Why  was  not  the  same  assistance 
vouchsafed  to  St.  Peter  himself  when  he  was  martyred 
at  Rome,  or  to  St.  Paul  when  he  lay  in  the  dungeon  in 
the  same  city  of  Rome  or  at  Caesarea  ?  Simply,  we 
reply,  because  God's  hour  was  not  yet  come  and  the 
Apostle's  work  was  not  yet  done.  St.  James's  work 
was  done,  and  therefore  the  Lord  did  not  immediately 
interfere,  or  rather  He  summoned  His  servant  to  His 
assigned  post  of  honour  by  the  ministry  of  Herod. 
The  wrath  of  man  became  the  instrument  whereby 
the  praises  of  God  were  chanted  and  the  soul  of  the 
righteous  conveyed  to  its  appointed  place.  The  Lord 
did  not  interfere  when  St.  Paul  was  cast  into  the  prison 
house  at  Caesarea,  or  St.  Peter  incarcerated  in  the 
Roman  dungeon,  because  they  had  then  a  great  work 
to  do  in  showing  how  His  servants  can  suffer  as  well 
as  work.  But  now  St.  Peter  had  many  a  long  year  of 
active  labour  before  him  and  much  work  to  do  as  the 
Apostle  of  the  Circumcision  in  preventing  that  schism 
with  which  the  diverse  parties  and  opposing  ideas  of 
Jew  and  Gentile  threatened  the  infant  Church,  in 
smoothing  over  and  reconciling  the  manifold  opposi- 
tions, jealousies,  difficulties,  misunderstandings,  which 
ever  attend  such  a  season  of  transition  and  transforma- 
tion as  now  was  fast  dawning  upon  the  Divine  society. 
The  arrest  of  St.  Peter  and  his  threatened  death  was 
a  great  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  primitive  Church. 
St.  Peter's  life  was  very  precious  to  the  existence  of 
that  Church,  it  was  very  precious  for  the  welfare  of 
mankind  at  large,  and  so  it  was  a  fitting  time  for  God 
VOL.   II.  12 


178  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  raise  up  a  banner  against  triumphant  pride  and 
worldly  force  by  the  hand  of  a  supernatural  messenger. 
The  steps  by  which  St.  Peter  was  delivered  are  all 
of  them  full  of  edification  and  comfort.  Let  us  mark 
them.  "  When  Herod  was  about  to  bring  him  forth, 
the  same  night  Peter  was  sleeping  between  two  soldiers, 
bound  with  two  chains  :  and  guards  before  the  door 
kept  the  prison."  It  was  on  that  fateful  night  the  same 
as  when  the  angels  descended  on  the  Resurrection 
morning :  the  guards  were  in  their  rightful  place  and 
discharging  their  accustomed  duties,  but  when  God 
intervenes  then  human  precautions  are  all  useless. 
The  words  of  the  narrative  are  striking  in  their  quiet 
dignity.  There  is  no  working  up  of  details.  There  is 
no  pandering  to  mere  human  curiosity.  Everything 
is  in  keeping  with  the  sustained  force,  sublimity, 
elevation  which  we  ever  behold  in  the  Divine  action. 
Peter  was  sleeping  between  two  soldiers ;  one  chained 
to  each  arm,  so  that  he  could  not  move  without  awaking 
them.  He  was  sleeping  profoundly  and  calmly,  because 
he  felt  himself  in  the  hands  of  an  Almighty  Father  who 
will  order  everything  for  the  best.  The  interior  rest 
amid  the  greatest  trials  which  an  assured  confidence 
like  that  enjoyed  by  St.  Peter  can  confer  is  something 
marvellous,  and  has  not  been  confined  to  apostolic 
times.  Our  Lord's  servants  have  in  every  age  proved 
the  same  wondrous  power,  I  know  of  course  that 
criminals  are  often  said  to  enjoy  a  profound  sleep  the 
night  before  their  execution.  But  then  habitual 
criminals  and  hardened  murderers  have  their  spiritual 
natures  so  completely  overmastered  and  dominated  by 
their  lower  material  powers  that  they  realise  nothing 
beyond  the  present.  They  are  little  better  than  the 
beasts  which  perish,  and  think  as  little  of  the  future 


xii.  1-3, 23, 24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  17<) 

as  they  do.  But  persons  with  highly  strung  nervous 
powers,  who  reaUse  the  awful  change  impending  over 
them,  cannot  be  as  they,  specially  if  they  have  no  such 
sure  hope  as  that  which  sustained  St.  Peter.  He  slept 
calmly  here  as  Paul  and  Silas  rejoiced  in  the  Philippian 
prison  house,  as  the  Master  Himself  slept  calmly  in 
the  stern  of  the  wave-rocked  boat  on  the  Galilean  lake, 
because  he  knew  himself  to  be  reposing  in  the  arms 
of  Everlasting  Love,  and  this  knowledge  bestowed 
upon  him  a  sweet  and  calm  repose  at  the  moment  of 
supreme  danger  of  which  the  fevered  children  of  time 
know  nothing. 

And  now  all  the  circumstances  of  the  celestial  visit 
are  found  to  be  most  suitable  and  becoming.  The 
angel  stood  by  Peter.  A  light  shined  in  the  cell,  because 
light  is  the  very  element  in  which  these  heavenly  beings 
spend  their  existence.  The  chains  which  bind  St.  Peter 
fell  off  without  any  effort  human  or  angelic,  just  as  in  a 
few  moments  the  great  gate  of  the  prison  opened  of  its 
own  accord,  because  all  these  things,  bonds  and  bolts 
and  bars,  derive  all  their  coercive  power  from  the  will 
of  God,  and  when  that  will  changes  or  is  withdrawn 
they  cease  to  be  operative,  or  become  the  instruments 
of  the  very  opposite  purpose,  assisting  and  not  hinder- 
ing His  servants.  Then  the  angel's  actions  and  direc- 
tions are  characteristic  in  their  dignified  vigour.  He 
told  the  awakened  sleeper  to  act  promptly  :  "  He  smote 
him  on  the  side,  and  awoke  him,  saying.  Rise  up 
quickly."  But  there  is  no  undue  haste.  As  on  the 
Resurrection  morning  the  napkin  that  was  upon  Christ's 
head  was  found  not  lying  with  the  rest  of  the  grave- 
cloths,  but  rolled  up  in  a  place  by  itself,  so  too  on  this 
occasion  the  angel  shows  minute  care  for  Peter's 
personal  appearance.     There  must  be  nothing  undigni- 


1 80  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

fied,  careless,  untidy  even,  about  the  dress  of  the 
rescued  apostle :  "  Gird  thyself,  and  bind  on  thy 
sandals."  St.  Peter  had  naturally  laid  aside  his 
external  garments,  had  unloosed  his  inner  robes,  and 
taken  off  his  sandals  when  preparing  for  sleep.  Nothing, 
however,  escapes  the  heavenly  messenger,  and  so  he 
says,  "Cast  thy  garment  about  thee,  and  follow  me," 
referring  to  the  loose  upper  robe  or  overcoat  which  the 
Jews  wore  over  their  underclothes ;  and  then  the  angel 
led  him  forth,  teaching  the  Church  the  perpetual  lesson 
that  external  dignity  of  appearance  is  evermore  becoming 
to  God's  people,  when  not  even  an  angel  considered 
these  things  beneath  his  notice  amid  all  the  excitement 
of  a  midnight  rescue,  nor  did  the  inspired  writer  omit 
to  record  such  apparently  petty  details.  Nothing  about 
St.  Peter  was  too  trivial  for  the  angel's  notice  and 
direction,  as  again  nothing  in  life  is  too  trivial  for  the 
sanctifying  and  elevating  care  of  our  holy  religion. 
Dress,  food,  education,  marriage,  amusements,  all  of 
life's  work  and  of  life's  interests,  are  the  subject-matter 
whereon  the  principles  inculcated  by  Jesus  Christ  and 
taught  by  the  ministry  of  His  Church  are  to  find  their 
due  scope  and  exercise.^ 

'  The  early  Church  has  left  us  a  treatise  showing  how  thoroughly  it 
recognised  its  duty  in  this  respect.  The  "Psedagogue"  or  the  "In- 
structor "  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  is  a  handbook  of  the  social  life  of  the 
early  Christians,  teaching  them  what  to  do  and  wear  and  say  under  every 
conceivable  circumstance.  Clement  thinks  nothing  too  trivial  for  the 
rule  of  Christian  principle,  prescribing  the  kind  of  clothes,  shoes,  and 
beds  which  should  be  used.  He  may  seem  at  times  to  border  on  the 
ludicrous  in  his  minuteness ;  but  then  we  cannot  realise  how  profoundly 
paganism  had  corrupted  human  life  and  manners.  Thus  in  Book  III., 
ch.  xi.,  he  treats  of  the  management  of  the  hair  by  men.  Paganism 
had  introduced  many  sensual  practices  in  this  direction.  Clement 
lays  down  :  "  Let  the  head  of  men  be  shaven,  unless  it  has  curly  hair. 
But  let  the  chin  have  the  hair.     But  let  not  twisted  locks  hang  far  down 


xii.  1-3, 23,  24.]       THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  i8i 

Peter's  deliverance  was  now  complete.  The  angel 
conducted  him  through  one  street  to  assure  him  that  he 
was  really  free  and  secure  him  from  bewilderment, 
and  then  departed.  The  Apostle  thereupon  sought  out 
the  well-known  centre  of  Christian  worship,  "  the  house 
of  Mary  the  mother  of  John,  whose  surname  was  Mark," 
where  stood  the  upper  chamber,  honoured  as  no  other 
upper  chamber  had  ever  been.  There  he  made  known 
his  escape,  and  then  retired  to  some  secret  place 
where  Herod  could  not  find  him,  remaining  there 
concealed  till  Herod  was  dead  and  direct  Roman  law 
and  authority  were  once  more  in  operation  at  Jerusalem.^ 
There  are  two  or  three  details  in  this  narrative  that  are 
deserving  of  special  notice,  as  showing  that  St.  Luke 
received  the  story  most  probably  from  St.  Peter  him- 
self. These  touches  are  expressions  of  St.  Peter's 
inner  thoughts,  which  could  have  been  known  only  to 
St.  Peter,  and  must  have  been  derived  from  him.  Thus 
we  are  told  about  his  state  of  mind  when  the  angel 
appeared  :  "  He  wist  not  that  it  was  true  which  was 
done  by  the  angel,  but  thought  he  saw  a  vision." 
Again,  after  his  deliverance,  we  are  told  of  the  thoughts 


from  the  head  gliding  into  womanish  ringlets.  .  .  .  Since  cropping  is  to 
be  adopted,  not  on  account  of  elegance,  but  for  the  necessity  of  the  case  ; 
the  hair  of  the  head,  that  it  may  not  grow  so  long  as  to  come  down  and 
interfere  with  the  eyes,  and  that  of  the  moustache  similarly  which  is 
dirtied  in  eating,  is  to  be  cut  round,  not  by  a  razor,  for  that  were 
unbecoming,  but  by  a  pair  of  cropping  scissors.  But  the  hair  on  the  chin 
is  not  to  be  disturbed,  as  it  gives  no  trouble,  and  lends  to  the  face  dignity 
and  paternal  terror."  This  treatise  of  a  very  early  Christian  writer  can 
be  easily  consulted  in  Clark's  Anle-Nicene  Library. 

'  There  is  an  ancient  tradition  that  our  Lord  bade  the  apostles 
remain  twelve  years  in  Jerusalem  before  they  dispersed  to  preach  the 
gospel  all  the  world  over  (Eusebius,  H.  E.,  V.,  xviii.).  Some  think  that 
the  famine  and  persecution  which  now  happened  may  have  been  the 
occasion  of  their  dispersion. 


1 82  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

which  passed  through  his  mind,  the  words  which  rose 
to  his  hps  when  he  found  himself  once  again  a  free 
man :  "  When  Peter  was  come  to  himself,  he  said,  Now 
I  know  of  a  truth  that  the  Lord  hath  sent  forth  His 
angel,  and  delivered  me  out  of  the  hand  of  Herod,  and 
from  all  the  expectation  of  the  people  of  the  Jews.' 
While,  again,  how  true  to  Hfe  and  to  the  female  nature 
is  the  incident  of  the  damsel  Rhoda  !  She  came  across 
the  courtyard  to  hearken  and  see  who  was  knocking  at 
the  outer  gate  at  that  late  hour :  "  When  she  knew 
Peter's  voice,  she  opened  not  the  gate  for  joy,  but  ran 
in  and  told  that  Peter  stood  before  the  gate."  We 
behold  the  impulsiveness  of  the  maid.  She  quite  forgot 
the  Apostle's  knocking  at  the  gate  in  her  eager  desire 
to  convey  the  news  to  his  friends.  And,  again,  how 
true  to  nature  their  scepticism  !  They  were  gathered 
praying  for  Peter's  release,  but  so  little  did  they 
expect  an  answer  to  their  prayers  that,  when  the  answer 
does  come,  and  in  the  precise  way  that  they  were 
asking  for  it  and  longing  for  it,  they  are  astonished, 
and  tell  the  maid-servant  who  bore  the  tidings,  "  Thou 
art  mad."  We  pray  as  the  primitive  Church  did,  and 
that  constantly ;  but  is  it  not  with  us  as  with  them  ? 
We  pray  indeed,  but  we  do  not  expect  our  prayers  to 
be  answered,  and  therefore  we  do  not  profit  by  them 
as  we  might. 

Such  were  the  circumstances  of  St.  Peter's  deliver- 
ance, which  was  a  critical  one  for  the  Church.  It 
struck  a  blow  at  Herod's  new  policy  of  persecution 
unto  death  ;  it  may,  have  induced  him  to  depart  from 
Jerusalem  and  descend  to  Caesarea,  where  he  met  his 
end,  leaving  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  in  peace ;  and 
the  deliverance  must  have  thrown  a  certain  marvellous 
halo   round    St.    Peter   when    he    appeared   again    at 


xii.  1-3, 23,  24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  183 


Jerusalem,  enabling  him  to  occupy  a  more  prominent 
position  without  any  fear  for  his  life. 

III.  We  have  also  recorded  in  this  chapter  a  notable 
defeat  of  pride,  ostentation,  and  earthly  power.  The 
circumstances  are  well  known.  Herod,  vexed  perhaps 
by  his  disappointment  in  the  matter  of  Peter,  went  down 
to  Caesarea,  which  his  grandfather  had  magnificently 
adorned.  But  he  had  other  reasons  too.  He  had  a 
quarrel  with  the  men  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  he  would 
take  effective  measures  against  them.  Tyre  and  Sidon 
were  great  seaports  and  commercial  towns,  but  their 
country  did  not  produce  food  sufficient  for  the  mainten- 
ance of  its  inhabitants,  just  as  England,  the  emporium 
of  the  world's  commerce,  is  obliged  to  depend  for  its 
food  supplies  upon  other  and  distant  lands.^  The  men 
of  Tyre  and  Sidon  were  not,  however,  unacquainted 
with  the  ways  of  Eastern  courts.  They  bribed  the 
king's  chamberlain,  and  Herod  was  appeased.  There 
was  another  motive  which  led  Herod  to  Caesarea.  It 
was  connected  with  his  Roman  experience  and  with 
his  courtier-life.  The  Emperor  Claudius  Caesar  was  his 
friend  and  patron.  To  him  Herod  owed  his  restoration 
to  the  rich  dominions  of  his  grandfather.  That  emperor 
had  gone  in  the  previous  year,  a.d.  43,  to  conquer  Britain. 
He  spent  six  months  in  our  northern  regions  in  Gaul 
and  Britain,  and  then,  when  smitten  by  the  cold  blasts 
of  midwinter,  he  fled  to  the  south  again,  as  so  many  of 

'  It  is  noteworthy,  indeed,  that  it  was  with  Tyre  and  Sidon  in  the  days 
of  Herod  as  it  was  with  them  in  the  earlier  days  of  King  Solomon  and  of 
the  prophets.  In  I  Kings  v.  10,  11  we  see  that  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre, 
depended  on  Solomon  for  food  :  "So  Hiram  gave  Solomon  timber  of 
cedar  and  timber  of  fir  according  to  all  his  desire.  And  Solomon  gave 
Hiram  twenty  thousand  measures  of  wheat  for  food  to  his  household, 
and  twenty  measures  of  pure  oil :  thus  gave  Solomon  to  Hiram  year 
by  year"  ;  with  which  may  be  compared  Ezekiel  xxvii.  17. 


1 84  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

our  own  people  do  now.  He  arrived  in  Rome  in  the 
January  of  the  year  44,  and  immediately  ordered  public 
games  to  be  celebrated  in  honour  of  his  safe  return, 
assuming  as  a  special  name  the  title  Britannicus. 
These  public  shows  were  imitated  everywhere  through- 
out the  empire  as  soon  as  the  news  of  the  Roman 
celebrations  arrived.  The  tidings  would  take  two  or 
three  months  to  arrive  at  Palestine,  and  the  Passover 
may  have  passed  before  Herod  heard  of  his  patron's 
doings.  Jewish  scruples  would  not  allow  him  to  cele- 
brate games  after  the  Roman  fashion  at  Jerusalem, 
and  for  this  purpose  therefore  he  descended  to  the 
Romanised  city  of  Csesarea,  where  all  the  appliances 
necessary  for  that  purpose  were  kept  in  readiness. 
There  is  thus  a  link  which  binds  together  the  history 
of  our  own  nation  and  this  interesting  incident  in  early 
Christian  histoi"y.  The  games  were  duly  celebrated, 
but  they  were  destined  to  be  Herod's  last  act.  On  an 
appointed  day  he  sat  in  the  theatre  of  Caesarea  to  receive 
the  ambassadors  from  Tyre  and  Sidon.  He  presented 
himself  early  in  the  morning  to  the  sight  of  the  multi- 
tude clad  in  a  robe  of  silver  which  flashed  in  the  light 
reflecting  back  the  rays  of  the  early  sun  and  dazzling 
the  mixed  multitude — supple,  crafty  Syrians,  paganised 
Samaritans,  self-seeking  and  worldly-wise  Phoenicians. 
He  made  a  speech  in  response  to  the  address  of  the 
envoys,  and  then  the  flattering  shout  arose,  "  The 
voice  of  a  god,  and  not  of  a  man."  Whereupon  the 
messenger  of  God  smote  Herod  with  that  terrible  form 
of  disease  which  accompanies  unbounded  self-indul- 
gence and  luxury,  and  the  proud  tyrant  learned  what 
a  plaything  of  time,  what  a  mere  creature  of  a  day  is 
a  king  as  much  as  a  beggar,  as  shown  by  the  narra- 
tive preserved  by  Josephus  of  this  event.     He  tells  us 


xii.  1-3,  23,  24.]        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  185 

that,  when  seized  by  the  mortal  disease,  Herod  looked 
upon  his  friends,  and  said,  "I,  whom  you  call  a  god, 
am  commanded  presently  to  depart  this  life ;  while 
Providence  thus  reproves  the  lying  words  you  just 
now  said  to  me ;  and  I,  who  was  by  you  called  immortal, 
am  immediately  to  be  hurried  away  by  death."  ^     What 

'  The  story  of  the  death  of  Herod  Agrippa  as  told  by  Josephus, 
Antiqq.,  Book  XIX.,  ch.  viii.,  is  in  striking  unison  with  that  given  in 
the  Acts.  "Now  when  Agrippa  had  reigned  three  years  over  all 
Jadea,  he  came  to  the  city  Ca;sarea,  formerly  called  Strato's  Tower  ;  and 
there  he  exhibited  shows  in  honour  of  Caasar,  upon  his  being  informed 
that  there  was  a  certain  festival  celebrated  on  account  of  his  safety. 
At  which  festival  a  great  multitude  was  gotten  together  of  the  principal 
persons,  and  such  as  were  of  dignity  through  his  province.  On  the 
second  day  of  which  shows  he  put  on  a  garment  made  wholly  of  silver, 
and  of  a  contexture  truly  wonderful,  and  came  into  the  theatre  early  in 
the  morning ;  at  which  time  the  silver  of  his  garment,  being  illuminated 
by  the  fresh  reflexion  of  the  sun's  rays  upon  it,  shone  out  after  a  sur- 
prising manner,  and  was  so  resplendent  as  to  spread  a  terror  over  those 
that  looked  intently  upon  him  ;  and  presently  his  flatterers  cried  out, 
one  from  one  place,  and  another  from  another  (though  not  for  his  good), 
that  he  was  a  god  ;  and  they  added,  *  Be  thou  merciful  to  us  ;  for 
though  we  have  hitherto  reverenced  thee  only  as  a  man,  yet  shall  we 
henceforth  own  thee  as  superior  to  mortal  nature.'  Upon  this  the  king 
did  neither  rebuke  them,  nor  reject  their  impious  flattery.  But  as  he 
presently  afterwards  looked  up  he  saw  an  owl  sitting  on  a  certain  rope 
over  his  head,  and  immediately  understood  that  this  bird  was  the 
messenger  of  ill  tidings,  as  it  had  once  been  the  messenger  of  good  tidings 
to  him,  and  fell  into  the  deepest  soitow.  A  severe  pain  also  arose  in 
his  stomach,  and  began  in  a  most  v  iolent  manner.  He  therefore  looked 
upon  his  friends,  and  said,  '  I,  whom  you  call  a  god,  am  commanded 
presently  to  depart  this  life  ;  while  Providence  thus  reproves  the  lying 
words  you  just  now  said  to  me  ;  and  I,  who  was  by  you  called  immortal, 
am  immediately  to  be  hurried  away  by  death.  But  I  am  bound  to  accept 
of  what  Providence  allots,  as  it  pleases  God  ;  for  we  have  by  no  means 
lived  ill,  but  in  a  splendid  and  happy  manner.'  When  he  said  this  his 
pain  became  violent,  and  he  was  carried  into  the  palace."  The  reference 
to  the  owl  relates  to  a  story  about  Agrippa's  earlier  life  told  by  Josephus 
in  \\\s  Antiqt].,  Book  XVIH.,  ch.  vi.  The  Emperor  Tiberius  had  bound 
Agrippa,  and  placed  him  in  his  purple  garments  opposite  his  palace, 
with  a  number  of  other  prisoners,  among  whom  was  a  German.     An 


I86  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

a  striking  picture  of  life's  changes  and  chances,  and  of 
the  poetic  retributions  we  at  times  behold  in  the  course 
of  God's  Providence  !  One  short  chapter  of  the  Acts 
shows  us  Herod  triumphant  side  by  side  with  Herod 
laid  low,  Herod  smiting  apostles  with  the  sword  side 
by  side  with  Herod  himself  smitten  to  death  by  the 
Divine  sword.  A  month's  time  may  have  covered 
all  the  incidents  narrated  in  this  chapter.  But, 
short  as  the  period  was,  it  must  have  been  rich  in 
support  and  consolation  to  the  apostles  Saul  and 
Barnabas,  who  were  doubtless  deeply  interested  spec- 
tators of  the  rapidly  shifting  scene,  telling  them  clearly 
of  the  heavenly  watch  exercised  over  the  Church. 
They  had  come  up  from  Antioch,  bringing  alms  to 
render  aid  to  their  afQicted  brethren  in  Christ.  The 
famine,  as  we  have  just  now  seen  from  the  anxiety  of 
the  men  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  to  be  on  friendly  terms 
with  Herod,  was  rapidly  making  itself  felt  throughout 
Palestine  and  the  adjacent  lands,  and  so  the  deputies 
of  the  Antiochene  Church  hurried  up  to  Jerusalem  with 
the  much-needed  gifts.^  It  may  indeed  be  said,  how 
could  St.  Paul  hope  to  escape  at  such  a  time  ?  Would 
it  not  have  been  madness  for  him  to  risk  his  safety  in 
a  city  where  he  had  once  been  so  well  known  ?  But, 
then,  we  must  remember  that  it  was  at  the  Passover 


o>vl  perched  on  a  tree  near  Agrippa,  whereupon  the  German  predicted 
that  he  would  be  freed  from  his  bonds,  and  be  raised  to  highest  station  ; 
but  that  when  he  saw  the  owl  again  his  death  would  be  only  five  days 
distant. 

'  The  Jews  themselves  received  at  the  same  time  the  support  of  their 
foreign  proselytes.  Helena,  Queen  of  Adiabene,  sent  liberal  gifts  to 
Jerusalem  to  support  the  famine-stricken  multitudes  of  that  city,  as 
Josephus  tells  in  his  Antiquities,  XX.,  ii.,  5.  Cf.  Lewin's  Life  of 
St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  p.  108,  where  the  reader  will  find  engravings  of  her 
mausoleum  as  it  is  still  to  be  seen  at  Jerusalem, 


xii.  1-3,  23, 24.]      JHE  DEFEAT  OF  PRIDE.  187 


season  Saul  and  Barnabas  went  from  Antioch  to  Jeru- 
salem. Vast  crowds  then  entered  the  Holy  City,  and 
a  solitary  Jew  or  two  from  Antioch  might  easily  escape 
notice  among  the  myriads  which  then  assembled  from 
all  quarters.  St,  Paul  enjoyed  too  a  wondrous  measure 
of  the  Spirit's  guidance,  and  that  Spirit  told  him  that 
he  had  yet  much  work  to  do  for  God.  The  Apostle  had 
wondrous  prudence  joined  with  wondrous  courage,  and 
we  may  be  sure  that  he  took  wisest  precautions  to 
escape  the  sword  of  Herod  which  would  have  so  eagerly 
drunk  his  blood.  He  remained  in  Jerusalem  all  the 
time  of  the  Passover.  His  clear  vision  of  the  spiritual 
world  must  then  have  been  most  precious  and  most 
sustaining.  All  the  apostles  were  doubtless  scattered  ; 
James  was  dead,  and  Peter  doomed  to  death.  The  tem- 
poral troubles,  famine  and  poverty,  which  called  Saul 
and  Barnabas  to  Jerusalem,  brought  with  them  corre- 
sponding spiritual  blessings,  as  we  still  so  often  find,  and 
the  brave  words  of  the  chosen  vessel,  the  Vas  Electionis, 
aided  by  the  sweet  gifts  of  the  Son  of  Consolation, 
may  have  been  very  precious  and  very  helpful  to 
those  deepest  souls  in  the  Jerusalem  Church  who 
gathered  themselves  for  continuous  prayer  in  the  house 
of  Mary  the  mother  of  John,  teaching  them  the  true 
character,  the  profound  views,  the  genuine  religion 
of  one  whose  earlier  life  had  been  so  very  different 
and  whose  later  views  may  have  been  somewhat  sus- 
pected. Saul  and  Barnabas  arrived  in  Jerusalem  at 
a  terrible  crisis,  they  saw  the  crisis  safely  passed,  and 
then  they  returned  to  an  atmosphere  freer  and  broader 
than  that  of  Jerusalem,  and  there  in  the  exercise  of  a 
devoted  ministry  awaited  the  further  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  purposes, 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ST.  PAUL'S   ORDINATION  AND  FIRST  MISSIONARY 
TOUR. 

"As  they  ministered  to  the  Lord,  and  fasted,  the  Holy  Ghost  said. 
Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for  the  work  whereunto  I  have  called 
them.  Then,  when  they  had  fasted  and  prayed  and  laid  their  hands  on 
them,  they  sent  them  away.  So  they,  being  sent  forth  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  went  down  to  Seleucia ;  and  from  thence  they  sailed  to  Cyprus. 
.  .  .  But  they,  passing  through  from  Perga,  came  to  Antioch  of  Pisidia ; 
and  they  went  into  the  synagogue  on  the  sabbath  day,  and  sat  down." 
—Acts  xiii.  2-4,  14. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  in  Iconium,  that  they  entered  together  into 
the  synagogue  of  the  Jews,  and  so  spake,  that  a  great  multitude  both 
of  Jews  and  of  Greeks  believed.  .  .  .  They  sailed  to  Antioch,  from 
whence  they  had  been  committed  to  the  grace  of  God  for  the  work 
which  they  had  fulfilled." — Acts  xiv.  i,  26. 

WE  have  now  arrived  at  what  we  might  call  the 
watershed  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Hither- 
to we  have  had  very  various  scenes,  characters,  per- 
sonages to  consider.  Henceforth  St.  Paul,  his  labours, 
his  disputes,  his  speeches,  occupy  the  entire  field,  and 
every  other  name  that  is  introduced  into  the  narrative 
plays  a  very  subordinate  part.  This  is  only  natural. 
St.  Luke  knew  of  the  earHer  history  by  information 
gained  from  various  persons,  but  he  knew  of  the  later 
history,  and  specially  of  St.  Paul's  journeys,  by  per- 
sonal experience.  He  could  say  that  he  had  formed 
a  portion  and  played  no  small  part  in  the  work  of 
which  he  was  telling,  and  therefore  St.  Paul's  activity 


xiii. 2-4,  14.]  ST.  PAUVS  ORDINATION.  189 

naturally  supplies  the  chief  subject  of  his  narrative. 
St.  Luke  in  this  respect  was  exactly  like  ourselves. 
What  we  take  an  active  part  in,  where  our  own  powers 
are  specially  called  into  operation,  there  our  interest  is 
speciall}'  aroused.  St.  Luke  personally  knew  of  St.  Paul's 
missionary  journeys  and  labours,  and  therefore  when 
telling  Theophilus  of  the  history  of  the  Church  down 
to  the  year  60  or  thereabouts,  he  deals  with  that  part 
of  it  which  he  specially  knows.  This  limitation  of 
St.  Luke's  vision  limits  also  our  range  of  exposition. 
The  earlier  portion  of  the  Acts  is  much  richer  from 
an  expositor's  point  of  view,  comprises  more  typical 
narratives,  scenes,  events  than  the  latter  portion, 
though  this  latter  portion  may  be  richer  in  points  of 
contact,  historical  and  geographical,  with  the  world  of 
life  and  action. 

It  is  with  an  expositor  or  preacher  exactly  the 
opposite  as  with  the  Church  historian  or  biographer 
of  St.  Paul.  A  writer  gifted  with  the  exuberant 
imagination,  the  minute  knowledge  of  a  Renan  or  a 
Farrar  naturally  finds  in  the  details  of  travel  with 
which  the  latter  portion  of  the  Acts  is  crowded  matter 
for  abundant  discussion.  He  can  pour  forth  the 
treasures  of  information  which  modern  archaeological 
research  has  furnished  shedding  light  upon  the  move- 
ments of  the  Apostle.  But  with  the  preacher  or 
expositor  it  is  otherwise.  There  are  numerous  incidents 
which  lend  themselves  to  his  purpose  in  the  journeys 
recorded  in  this  latter  portion  of  the  book ;  but  while 
a  preacher  might  find  endless  subjects  for  spiritual 
exposition  in  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  or  the  martyr- 
dom of  St.  Stephen,  he  finds  himself  confined  to  his- 
torical and  geographical  discussions  in  large  portions 
of  the  story  dealing  with  St.   Paul's  journeys.     We 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


shall,  however,  strive  to  unite  both  functions,  and 
while  endeavouring  to  treat  the  history  from  an  exposi- 
tor's point  of  viev/,  we  shall  not  overlook  details  of 
another  type  which  will  impart  colour  and  interest  to 
the  exposition. 

I.  The  thirteenth  chapter  of  the  Acts  records  the 
opening  of  St.  Paul's  official  missionary  labours,  and 
its  earliest  verses  tell  us  of  the  formal  separation  or 
consecration  for  that  work  which  St.  Paul  received. 
Now  the  question  may  here  be  raised,  Why  did  St.  Paul 
receive  such  a  solemn  ordination  as  that  we  here  read 
of?  Had  he  not  been  called  by  Christ  immediately  ? 
Had  he  not  been  designated  to  the  work  in  Gentile 
lands  by  the  voice  of  the  same  Jesus  Christ  speaking 
to  Ananias  at  Damascus  and  afterwards  to  Paul  himself 
in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  ?  What  was  the  necessity 
for  such  a  solemn  external  imposition  of  hands  as  that 
here  recorded  ?  John  Calvin,  in  his  commentary  on 
this  passage,  offers  a  very  good  suggestion,  and  shows 
that  he  was  able  to  throw  himself  back  into  the  feelings 
and  ideas  of  the  times  far  better  than  many  a  modern 
writer.  Calvin  thinks  that  this  revelation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  this  ordination  by  the  hands  of  the  Antiochene 
prophets  were  absolutely  necessary  to  complete  the 
work  begun  by  St.  Peter  at  Caesarea,  and  for  this 
reason.  The  prejudices  of  the  Jewish  Christians  against 
their  Gentile  brethren  were  so  strong,  that  they  would 
regard  the  vision  at  Joppa  as  applying,  not  as  a  general 
rule,  but  as  a  mere  personal  matter,  authorising  the 
reception  of  Cornelius  and  his  party  alone.  They 
would  not  see  nor  understand  that  it  authorised  the 
active  evangelisation  of  the  Gentile  world  and  the  prose- 
cution of  aggressive  Christian  efforts  among  the  heathen. 
The  Holy  Ghost  therefore,  as  the  abiding  and  guiding 


xiii.  2-4,  14.]  ST.   PAUL'S   ORDINATION.  19S 

power  in  the  Church,  and  expressing  His  will  through 
the  agency  of  the  prophets  then  present,  said,  "  Separate 
me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for  the  work  whereunto  I  have 
called  them  "  ;  and  that  work  to  which  they  were  ex- 
pressly sent  forth  by  the  Holy  Ghost  was  the  work 
of  aggressive  effort  beginning  with  the  Jews — but  not 
terminating  with  them — and  including  the  Gentiles. 
This  seems  to  me  thoroughly  true,  and  shows  how 
Calvin  realised  the  intellectual  weakness,  the  spiritual 
hardness  of  heart  and  slowness  of  judgment  which  pre- 
vailed among  the  apostles.  The  battle  of  Christian 
freedom  and  of  catholic  truth  was  not  won  in  a  moment. 
Old  prejudices  did  not  depart  in  an  hour.  New 
principles  were  not  assimilated  and  applied  in  a  few 
days.  Those  who  hold  nobler  views  and  higher 
principles  than  the  crowd  must  not  be  surprised  or 
dismayed  if  they  find  that  year  after  year  they  have 
to  fight  the  same  battles  and  to  proclaim  the  same 
fundamental  truths  and  to  maintain  what  may  seem  at 
times  even  a  losing  conflict  with  the  forces  of  unreason- 
ing prejudices.  If  this  was  the  case  in  the  primitive 
Church  with  all  its  unity  and  love  and  spiritual  gifts, 
we  may  well  expect  the  same  state  of  affairs  in  the 
Church  of  our  time.^ 

An  illustration  borrowed  from  Church  history  will 
explain  this.     Nothing  can   well   be  more    completely 

'  One  great  lesson  which  the  true  expositor  will  derive  from  this 
typical  history  is  this,  the  long,  doubtful,  painful  sti^ife  which  the  battle 
of  truth  and  justice  ever  involves.  The  struggle  for  Gentile  freedom 
waged  by  St.  Paul  is  typical  of  the  battle  for  freedom  of  conscience,  for 
freedom  of  knowledge,  for  human  rights  against  slavery,  and  of  every 
other  battle  against  tyranny  and  wrong  which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
The  combat  has  ever  been  long  and  wearisome,  and  the  chiefest  of  God's 
champions  have  always  been  compelled  to  suffer  much  for  their  support 
of  the  truth,  which  must,  however,  triumph  in  the  long  run. 


192  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity  than  rehgious 
persecution.  Nothing  can  be  imagined  more  com- 
pletely consonant  with  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion than  freedom  of  conscience.  Yet  how  hard  has 
been  the  struggle  for  it !  The  early  Christians  suffered 
in  defence  of  religious  freedom,  but  they  had  no  sooner 
gained  the  battle  than  they  adopted  the  very  principle 
against  which  they  had  fought.  They  became  religiously 
intolerant,  because  religious  intolerance  was  part  and 
parcel  of  the  Roman  state  under  which  they  had  been 
reared.  The  Reformation  again  was  a  battle  for 
religious  freedom.  If  it  were  not,  the  Reformers  who 
suffered  in  it  would  have  no  more  claim  to  our  com- 
passion and  sympathy  on  account  of  the  deaths  they 
suffered  than  soldiers  who  die  in  battle.  A  soldier 
merely  suffers  what  he  is  prepared  to  inflict,  and  so 
it  was  with  the  martyrs  of  the  Reformation  unless 
theirs  was  a  struggle  for  religious  freedom.  Yet  no 
sooner  had  the  battle  of  the  Reformation  been  won 
than  all  the  Reformed  Churches  adopted  the  very 
principle  which  had  striven  to  crush  themselves.  It 
is  terribly  difficult  to  emancipate  ourselves  from  the 
influence  and  ideas  of  bygone  ages,  and  so  it  was  with 
the  Jewish  Christians.  They  could  not  bring  them- 
selves to  adopt  missionary  work  among  the  Gentiles. 
They  believed  indeed  intellectually  that  God  had 
granted  unto  the  Gentiles  repentance  unto  life,  but 
that  belief  was  not  accompanied  with  any  of  the 
enthusiasm  which  alone  lends  life  and  power  to  mental 
conceptions.  The  Holy  Ghost  therefore,  as  the  Para- 
clete, the  loving  Comforter,  Exhorter,  and  Guide  of  the 
Church,  interposes  afresh,  and  by  a  new  revelation 
ordains  apostles  whose  great  work  shall  consist  in 
preaching  to  the  Gentile  world. 


xiii.2-4,  mJ  ST.   PAUL'S   ordination.  193 

This  seems  to  me  one  great  reason  for  the  prominent 
place  this  incident  at  Antioch  holds.  The  work  of 
Gentile  conversion  proceeded  from  Antioch,  which  may 
therefore  well  be  regarded  as  the  mother  Church  of 
Gentile  Christendom  ;  and  the  apostles  of  the  Gentiles 
were  there  solemnly  set  apart  and  constituted. 
Barnabas  and  Saul  were  not  previously  called  apostles. 
Henceforth  this  title  is  expressly  applied  to  them,  ^ 
and  independent  apostolic  action  is  taken  by  them. 
But  there  seems  to  me  another  reason  why  Barnabas 
and  Saul  were  thus  solemnly  set  apart,  notwithstanding 
all  their  previous  gifts  and  callings  and  history.  The 
Holy  Ghost  wished  to  lay  down  at  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Gentile  Church  the  law  of  orderly  development, 
the  rule  of  external  ordination,  and  the  necessity  for 
its  perpetual  observance.  And  therefore  He  issued 
His  mandate  for  their  visible  separation  to  the  work  of 
evangelisation.  All  the  circumstances  too  are  typical. 
The  Church  was  engaged  in  a  season  of  special  devo- 
tion when  the  Holy  Ghost  spoke.  A  special  blessing 
was  vouchsafed,  as  before  at  Pentecost,  when  the  people 
of  God  were  specially  waiting  upon  Him.  The  Church 
at  Antioch  as  represented  by  its  leading  teachers  were 
fasting  and  praying  and  ministering  to  the  Lord  when 

'  See,  for  instance,  ch.  xiv.  4  :  "  Part  held  with  the  Jews  and 
part  with  the  apostles  "  ;  and  again,  verse  14  :  "  But  when  the  apostles 
Barnabas  and  Paul  heard  of  it."  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
term  apostle  was  one  used  very  freely  among  the  Jews  to  signify 
the  official  delegates  of  the  high  priest,  the  Sanhedrin,  or  even  the 
smallest  synagogue.  It  has,  however,  gained  a  sanctity  and  special 
application  in  the  Christian  Church  which  causes  a  certain  amount 
of  mental  confusion.  At  the  same  time,  we  must  remember  that  the 
title  apostle  was  continued  in  the  primitive  Church  after  the  age  of 
the  Twelve.  It  was  applied  to  their  successors,  as  we  learn  from  the 
Didache,  xi. ;  Her/nas,  Sim.  ix.;  15,  16,  25.  Cf  Origen  on  John  iv., 
and  Euseb.,  H.  E,,  i,  12. 

VOL.    II.  13 


194  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Divine  mandate  was  issued,  and  then  they  fasted 
and  prayed  again.  The  ordination  of  the  first  apostles 
to  the  Gentiles  was  accompanied  by  special  prayer  and 
by  fasting,  and  the  Church  took  good  care  afterwards 
to  follow  closely  this  primitive  example.  The  institu- 
tion of  the  four  Ember  seasons  as  times  for  solemn 
ordinations  is  derived  from  this  incident.  The  Ember 
seasons  are  periods  for  solemn  prayer  and  fasting,  not 
only  for  those  about  to  be  ordained,  but  also  for  the 
whole  Church,  because  she  recognises  that  the  whole 
body  of  Christ's  people  are  interested  most  deeply 
and  vitally  in  the  nature  and  character  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry.  If  the  members  of  that  ministry  are 
devoted,  earnest,  inspired  with  Divine  love,  then  indeed 
the  work  of  Christ  flourishes  in  the  Church,  while  if 
the  ministry  of  God  be  careless  and  unspiritual,  the 
people  of  God  suifer  terrible  injury.  And  we  observe, 
further,  that  not  only  the  Church  subsequent  to  the 
apostolic  age  followed  this  example  at  Antioch,  but 
St.  Paul  himself  followed  it  and  prescribed  it  to  his 
disciples.  He  ordained  elders  in  every  Church,  and 
that  from  the  beginning.  He  acted  thus  on  his  very 
first  missionary  journey,  ordaining  by  the  imposition 
of  hands  accompanied  with  prayer  and  fasting,  as  we 
learn  from  the  fourteenth  chapter  and  twenty-third 
verse.  He  reminded  Timothy  of  the  gift  imparted  to 
that  youthful  evangelist  by  the  imposition  of  St.  Paul's 
own  hands,  as  well  as  by  those  of  the  presbytery  ;  and 
yet  he  does  not  hesitate  to  designate  the  elders  of 
Ephesus  and  Miletus  who  were  thus  ordained  by  St. 
Paul  as  bishops  set  over  God's  flock  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
Himself.  St.  Paul  and  the  Apostolic  Church,  in  fact, 
looked  behind  this  visible  scene.  They  realised  vividly 
the  truth  of  Christ's  promise  about  the  presence  of  the 


xiv.  I,  26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  195 

Holy  Ghost  in  the  Church.  They  took  no  miserably 
low  and  Erastian  views  of  the  sacred  ministry,  as  if  it 
were  an  office  of  mere  human  order  and  appointment. 
They  viewed  it  as  a  supernatural  and  Divine  office, 
which  no  mere  human  power,  no  matter  how  exalted, 
could  confer.  They  realised  the  human  instruments 
indeed  in  their  true  position  as  nothing  but  instruments, 
powerless  in  themselves,  and  mighty  only  through  God, 
and  therefore  St.  Paul  regarded  his  own  ordination 
of  the  elders  whom  he  appointed  at  Derbe,  Iconium, 
Lystra,  or  Ephesus  as  a  separation  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  their  Divine  offices.  The  Church  was,  in  fact, 
then  instinct  with  life  and  spiritual  vigour,  because  it 
thankfully  recognised  the  present  power,  the  living 
force  and  vigour  of  the  third  person  of  the  Holy 
Trinity. 

n.  The  apostles  having  been  thus  commissioned  lost 
no  time.  They  at  once  departed  upon  their  great  work. 
And  now  let  us  briefly  indicate  the  scope  of  the  first 
great  missionary  tour  undertaken  by  St.  Paul,  and  sketch 
its  outline,  fiUing  in  the  details  afterwards.  According 
to  early  tradition  the  headquarters  of  the  Antiochene 
Church  were  in  Singon  Street,  in  the*  southern  quarter 
of  Antioch.^  After  earnest  and  prolonged  religious 
services  they  left  their  Christian  brethren.  St.  Paul's 
own  practice  recorded  at  Ephesus,  Miletus,  and  at  Tyre 
shows  us  that  prayer  marked  such  separation  from  the 
Christian  brethren,  and  we  know  that  the  same  practice 
was  perpetuated  in  the  early  Church ;  Tertullian,  for 
instance,  telling  us  that  a  brother  should  no*t  leave  a 
Christian  house  until  he  had  been  commended  to  God's 

'  An  elaborate  plan  of  ancient  Antioch,  accompanied  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  its  various  parts  and  references  to  the  authorities  for  the  same, 
will  be  found  in  Lewin's  5/.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  p.  92. 


196  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

keeping.  They  then  crossed  the  bridge,  and  proceeded 
along  the  northern  bank  of  the  Orontes  to  Seleucia, 
the  port  of  Antioch,  where  the  ruins  still  testify  to  the 
vastness  of  the  architectural  conceptions  cherished  by 
the  Syrian  kings.  From  Seleucia  the  apostles  sailed  to 
the  island  of  Cyprus,  whose  peaks  they  could  see  eighty 
miles  distant  shining  bright  and  clear  through  the 
pellucid  air.  Various  circumstances  would  lead  them 
thither.  Barnabas  was  of  Cyprus,  and  he  doubtless 
had  many  friends  there.  Cyprus  had  then  an  immense 
Jewish  population,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out ; 
and  though  the  apostles  were  specially  designated  for 
work  among  the  Gentiles,  they  ever  made  the  Jews  the 
starting-point  whence  to  influence  the  outside  world, 
always  used  them  as  the  lever  whereby  to  move  the 
stolid  mass  of  paganism.  The  apostles  showed  a 
wholesome  example  to  all  missionaries  and  to  all 
teachers  by  this  method  of  action.  They  addressed 
the  Jews  first  because  they  had  most  in  common  with 
them.  And  St.  Paul  deliberately  and  of  set  purpose 
worked  on  this  principle,  whether  with  Jews  or  Gentiles. 
He  sought  out  the  ideas  or  the  ground  common  to  him- 
self and  his  hearers,  and  then,  having  found  the  points 
on  which  they  agreed,  he  worked  out  from  them.  It  is 
the  true  method  of  controversy.  I  have  seen  the  oppo- 
site course  adopted,  and  with  very  disastrous  effects.  I 
have  seen  a  method  of  controversial  argument  pursued, 
consisting  simply  in  attacks  upon  errors  without  any 
attempt  to  follow  the  apostohc  example  and  discover 
the  truths  which  both  parties  held  in  common,  and  the 
result  has  been  the  very  natural  one,  that  ill-will  and  bad 
feeling  have  been  aroused  without  effecting  any  changes 
in  conviction.  We  can  easily  understand  the  reason  of 
this,  if  we  consider  how  the  matter  would  stand  with 


xiv.  1,26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  197 

ourselves.  If  a  man  comes  up  to  us,  and  without  any 
attempt  to  discover  our  ideas  or  enter  into  sympathetic 
relations  with  us,  makes  a  very  aggressive  assault  upon 
all  our  particular  notions  and  practices,  our  backs  are 
at  once  put  up,  we  are  thrown  into  a  defensive  mood, 
our  pride  is  stirred,  we  resent  the  tone,  the  air  of  the 
aggressor,  and  unconsciously  determine  not  to  be  con- 
vinced by  him.  Controversial  preaching  of  that  class, 
hard,  unloving,  censorious,  never  does  any  permanent 
good,  but  rather  strengthens  and  confirms  the  person 
against  whose  belief  it  is  directed.  Nothing  of  this  kind 
will  ever  be  found  in  the  wise,  courteous  teaching  of 
the  apostle  Paul,  whose  few  recorded  speeches  to  Jews 
and  Gentiles  may  be  commended  to  the  careful  study 
of  all  teachers  at  home  or  abroad  as  models  of  mission 
preaching,  being  at  once  prudent  and  loving,  faithful 
and  courageous. 

From  Seleucia  the  apostles  itinerated  through  the 
whole  island  unto  Paphos,  celebrated  in  classical  an- 
tiquity as  the  favourite  seat  of  the  goddess  Venus, 
where  they  came  for  the  first  time  into  contact  with  a 
great  Roman  official,  Sergius  Paulus,  the  proconsul  of 
the  island.  From  Paphos  they  sailed  across  to  the 
mainland  of  Asia  Minor,  landed  at  Perga,  where  John 
Mark  abandoned  the  work  to  which  he  had  put  his 
hand.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  stayed  for  long  at 
Perga.  They  doubtless  declared  their  message  at  the 
local  synagogue  to  the  Jews  and  proselytes  who 
assembled  there,  for  we  are  not  to  conclude,  because 
a  synagogue  is  not  expressly  mentioned  as  belonging 
to  any  special  town,  that  therefore  it  did  not  exist. 
Modern  discoveries  have  shown  that  Jewish  syna- 
gogues were  found  in  every  considerable  town  or  city 
of  Asia  Minor,  preparing  the  way  by  their  pure  morality 


igS  THE  ACTS    OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  monotheistic  teaching  for  the  fuller  and  richer 
truths  of  Christianity.^  But  St.  Paul  had  fixed  his 
eagle  gaze  upon  Antioch  of  Pisidia,  a  town  which  had 
been  made  by  Augustus  Caesar  the  great  centre  of  this 
part  of  Asia  Minor,  whence  military  roads  radiated 
in  every  direction,  lending  thereby  the  assistance  of 
imperial  organisation  to  the  progress  of  the  gospel. 
Its  situation  was,  in  fact,  the  circumstance  which  deter- 
mined the  original  foundation  of  Antioch  by  the  Syrian 
princes."'^ 

Facility  of  access,  commercial  convenience  were 
points  at  which  they  chiefly  aimed  in  selecting  the  sites 
of  the  cities  they  built,  and  the  wisdom  of  their  choice 
in  the  case  of  Antioch  in  Pisidia  was  confirmed  when 
Augustus  and  Tiberius,  some  few  years  previous  to 
St.  Paul's  visit,  made  Antioch  the  centre  from  which 
diverged  the  whole  system  of  military  roads  throughout 
this  portion  of  Asia  Minor.  It  was  a  very  large  city, 
and  its  ruins  and  aqueducts  testify  to  this  day  concerning 
the  important  position  it  held  as  the  great  centre  of 
all  the  Roman  colonies  and  fortresses  which  Augustus 
planted  in  the  year  b.c.  6  along  the  skirts  of  the 
Taurus  Range  to  restrain  the  incursions  of  the  rude 
mountaineers  of  Isauria  and  Pisidia.  When  persecution 
compelled  the  apostles  to  retire  from  Antioch  they  took 

'  Hypajpa,  for  instance,  was  a  celebrated  sanctuary  of  Diana,  between 
Sardis  and  Ephesus.  Jewish  inscriptions  have  been  found  there  proving 
that  a  Jewish  synagogue  and  community  existed  even  in  that  pagan 
stronghold  :  see  Revtie  An/uvlogifue  for  1885,  vol.  ii.,  p.  III. 

'■*  There  is  a  series  of  plates  in  Lewin's  Life  of  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  pp. 
130-36,  depicting  the  site  and  ruins  of  Antioch,  and  showing  the  roads 
which  connected  it  with  all  the  leading  towns  of  the  neighbourhood, 
Iconium,  Lystra,  Derbe.  Professor  Ramsay,  in  his  Historical  Geography 
of  Asia  Minor,  bestows  a  good  deal  of  attention  on  Antioch  of  Pisidia 
and  its  position :  see  pp.  47,  57,  85,  391,  453. 


xiv.  1, 26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  199 

their  way  therefore  to  Iconium,  which  was  some  sixty 
miles  south-east  of  Antioch  along  one  of  these  military 
roads  of  which  we  have  spoken,  constructed  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  down  the  brigands  which  then,  as  in 
modern  times,  constituted  one  of  the  great  plagues 
of  Asia  Minor.^  But  why  did  the  apostles  retire  to 
Iconium  ?  Surely  one  might  say,  if  the  Jews  had 
influence  enough  at  Antioch  to  stir  up  the  chief  men 
of  the  city  against  the  missionaries,  they  would  have 
had  influence  enough  to  secure  a  warrant  for  their 
arrest  in  a  neighbouring  city.  At  first  sight  it  seems 
somewhat  difficult  to  account  for  the  line  of  travel  or 
flight  adopted  by  the  apostles.  But  a  reference  to 
ancient  geography  throws  some  light  upon  the  problem. 
Strabo,  a  geographer  of  St.  Paul's  own  day,  tells  us 
that  Iconium  was  an  independent  principality  or 
tetrarchy,  surrQunded  indeed  on  all  sides  by  Roman 
territory,  but  still  enjoying  a  certain  amount  of  independ- 
ence. The  apostles  fled  to  Iconium  when  persecution 
waxed  hot  because  they  had  a  good  road  thither,  and 
also  because  at  Iconium  they  were  secure  from  any 
legal  molestation  being  under  a  new  jurisdiction.^ 

'  St.  Paul,  writing  in  2nd  Corintliians,  speaks  of  himself  as  at  times  in 
perils  of  robbers.  This  danger  may  well  have  happened  to  him  in  the 
central  districts  of  Asia  Minor.  There  is  an  interesting  story  of  St. 
John  and  the  bandits  in  Eusebius,  JT.  £.,  iii.,  23.  The  incidents  there 
told  took  place  in  Asia  Minor. 

"  Iconium  was  in  St.  Paul's  day  the  centre  of  an  independent  tetrarchy 
ruled  by  native  princes.  See  Pliny's  NaL  Hist.,  v.  27.  The  site  of 
Iconium  has  never  been  uncertain.  It  was  made  the  capital  of  their 
dominions  by  the  Sultans  of  the  Seldjuk  Turks,  and  continued  to  occupy 
that  position  till  the  conquest  of  Constantinople.  It  is  still  called 
Konia,  a  modification  of  its  original  name,  and  still  continues  to  attract 
a  large  population  on  account  of  the  beauty  and  convenience  of  its 
situation,  which  gives  it  the  title  of  the  Damascus  of  Asia  Minor. 
According  to  tradition  Sosipatros,  one  of  the  seventy  disciples,  was  the 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


After  a  time,  however,  the  Jews  from  Antioch  made 
their  way  to  Iconium  and  began  the  same  process 
which  had  proved  so  successful  at  Antioch.  They  first 
excited  the  members  of  the  Jewish  synagogue  against 
the  apostles,  and  through  them  influenced  the  towns- 
people at  large,  so  that,  though  successful  in  winning 
converts,  St.  Paul  and  his  companion  were  in  danger 
of  being  stoned  by  a  joint  mob  of  Jews  and  Gentiles. 
They  had  therefore  to  fly  a  second  time,  and  when 
doing  so  they  acted  on  the  same  principle  as  before. 
They  again  removed  themselves  out  of  the  local  juris- 
diction of  their  enemies,  and  passed  to  Derbe  and  Lystra, 
cities  of  Lycaonia,  a  Roman  province  which  had  just 
been  formed  by  the  Emperor  Claudius.-^ 

Then  after  a  time,  when  the  disturbances  which  the 
Jews  persistently  raised  wherever  they  came  had  sub- 
sided, the  apostles  returned  back  over  the  same  ground, 
no   longer   indeed    publicly   preaching,    but   organising 

bishop  of  Iconium,  and  was  succeeded  by  Terentius,  another  member 
of  the  same  sacred  company ;  Ada  Sanctorum,  June  20th,  p.  67 ; 
Ramsay,  Hislorical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  p.  332.  The  latest 
account  of  Iconium  as  it  is  at  present  will  be  found  in  Sterrett's 
Epigraphical  Journey  in  Asia  Minor,  printed  among  the  Papers  of 
the  American  School  of  Classical  Studies  at  Athens,  Boston,  1884. 
vol.  ii.,  p.  188-225. 

'  The  apostles  seem  to  have  acted  as  in  former  times  persons  harassed 
by  legal  processes  could  do  in  this  country.  A  writ  directed  to  a  sheriff 
only  ran  within  his  own  county.  A  man  could  not  be  arrested  under  it  if 
he  passed  one  step  beyond  the  county  bounds,  till  countersigned  by  the 
sheriff  of  the  county  into  which  the  delinquent  had  passed.  Under  the 
Roman  empire  the  local  liberties  and  jurisdictions  were  simply  infinite, 
a  fact  which  of  course  lent  much  assistance  to  persons  persecuted  as  the 
apostles  were.  Derbe,  for  instance,  was  a  native  city  of  Lycaonia, 
and  belonged  to  the  Koinon  or  local  assembly  of  that  province.  Lystra 
was  situated  indeed  in  Lycaonia,  but  being  a  Roman  colony  had  there- 
fore exceptional  privileges,  and  scorned  to  belong  to  the  local  Assembly 
of  native  cities.     See  Ramsay,  Hist.  Geog,  pp.  332,  375,  376. 


xiv.  1,26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  201 

quietly  and  secretly  the  Churches  which  they  had 
founded  in  the  different  towns  through  which  they  had 
passed,  till  they  arrived  back  at  Perga,  where  perhaps, 
finding  no  ship  sailing  to  Antioch,  they  travelled  to  the 
port  of  Attalia,  where  they  succeeded  in  finding  a 
passage  to  that  city  of  Antioch  whence  they  had  been 
sent  forth.^  This  brief  sketch  will  give  a  general  view 
of  the  first  missionary  tour  made  in  the  realms  of 
paganism,  and  will  show  that  it  dealt  with  little  more 
than  two  provinces  of  Asia  Minor,  Pisidia  and  Lycaonia, 
and  was  followed  by  what  men  would  count  but  scanty 
results,  the  foundation  and  organisation  of  a  few  scattered 
Christian  communities  in  some  of  the  leading  towns  of 
these  districts. 

III.  Let  us  now  more  particularly  notice  some  of  the 
details  recorded  concerning  this  journey.  The  apostles 
began  their  work  •'at  Cyprus,  where  they  proclaimed 
the  gospel  in  the  Jewish  synagogues.  They  were 
attracted  as  we  have  said  to  this  island,  first,  because  it 
was  the  native  land  of  Barnabas,  and  then  because  its 
population  was  in  large  degree  Jewish,  owing  to  the 
possession  of  the  famous  copper  mines  of  the  island  by 
Herod  the  Great. ^  Synagogues  were  scattered  all  over 
the  island  and  proselytes  appertained  to  each  syna- 
gogue, and  thus  a  basis  of  operations  was  ready  whence 
the  gospel  message  might  operate.  It  was  just  the 
same  even  at  Paphos,  where  St.  Paul  came  in  contact 
with  the  proconsul  Sergius  Paulus.  The  Jewish  element 
here  again  appears,  though  in  more  active  opposition 
than  seems  to  have  been  elsewhere  offered.  Sergius 
Paulus  was  a  Roman  citizen  like  Cornelius  of  Caesarea. 

'  It  is  well  perhaps  to  note  that  the  i  in  this  name  is  long,  representing 
the  diphthong  ei,  the  Greek  name  of  the  town  being  'ArTciXeta. 
■  See  vol.  i.,  p.  216, 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


He    had    become   dissatisfied    with    the    belief  of    his 
forefathers.     He  had  now  come  into  contact  with  the 
mystic  East,  and  had  yielded  himself  to  the  guidance 
of  a  man  who  professed  the  Jewish   religion,   which 
seems    to    have    charmed    by    its    pure    morality    and 
simple  monotheism  many  of  the  noblest  minds  of  that 
age.     But,   like  all  outsiders,  Sergius  Paulus  did  not 
make  accurate  and  just  distinctions  between  man  and 
man.     He  yielded  himself  to  the  guidance  of  a  man 
who   traded   on  the  name  of  a  Jew,    but  who  really 
practised  those  rites  of  weird  sorcery  which  real  Judaism 
utterly  repudiate<i  and  denounced.     This  alone  accounts 
for  the  stern  language  of  St.  Paul :  "  O  full  of  all  guile 
and  all  villany,  thou  son  of  the  devil,  thou  enemy  of  all 
righteousness,  wilt  thou  not  cease  to  pervert  the  right 
ways  of  the  Lord  ?  "     St.  Paul  never  addressed  a  lawful 
opponent  in  this  manner.     He  did  not  believe  in  the 
efficacy  of  strong  language  in  itself,  nor  did  he  abuse 
those  who  withstood  him  in  honest  argument.     But  he 
did  not  hesitate,  on  the  other  hand,  to  brand  a  deceiver 
as  he  deserved,  or  to  denounce  in  scathing  terms  those 
who  were  guilty  of  conscious  fraud.     St.  Paul  might 
well  be  taken  as  a  model  controversialist  in  this  respect. 
He   knew   how    to    distinguish    between    the    genuine 
opponent  who    might  be   mistaken   but  was  certainly 
conscientious,  and  the  fraudulent  hypocrite  devoid  of 
all  convictions    save    the    conviction    of  the    value    of 
money.     With  the  former  St.  Paul  was  full  of  courtesy, 
patience,  consideration,  because  he  had  in  himself  ex- 
perience of  the  power  of  blind  unthinking   prejudice. 
For  the  latter  class  St.  Paul  had  no  consideration,  and 
with  them  he  wasted  no  time.     His  honest  soul  took 
their  measure  at  once.     He  denounced  them  as  he  did 
Elymas  on  this  occasion,  and  then  passed  on  to  deal 


xiv.  1,26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  203 

with  nobler  and  purer  souls,  where  honest  and  good 
hearts  offered  more  promising  soil  for  the  reception  of 
the  Word  of  the  Kingdom.  Controversy  of  every  kind 
is  very  trying  to  tongue  and  temper,  but  religious 
controversy  such  as  that  in  which  St.  Paul  spent  his 
life  is  specially  trying  to  the  character.  The  subject 
is  so  important  that  it  seems  to  excuse  an  over  zeal 
and  earnestness  which  terminates  in  bad  temper  and 
unwise  language.  And  yet  we  sometimes  cannot 
shrink  from  controversy,  because  conscience  demands 
it  on  our  part.  When  that  happens  to  be  the  case,  it 
will  be  well  for  us  to  exercise  the  most  rigorous  control 
over  our  feelings  and  our  words  ;  from  time  to  time  to 
realise  by  a  momentary  effort  of  introspection  Christ 
hanging  upon  the  cross  and  bearing  for  us  the  unworthy 
and  unjust  reproaches  of  mankind  ;  for  thus  and  thus 
only  will  pride  be  k<?'pt  down  and  hot  temper  restrained 
and  that  great  advantage  for  the  truth  secured  which 
self-control  always  bestows  upon  its  possessor. 

There  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  historic 
accuracy  of  St.  Luke  connected  with  the  apostolic  visit 
to  Paphos  and  to  Sergius  Paulus  the  proconsul.  Thrice 
over  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke,  Sergius  Paulus  is 
called  proconsul — first  in  the  seventh  verse  of  the 
thirteenth  chapter,  where  Elymas  the  sorcerer  is  de- 
scribed thus,  "  who  was  with  the  proconsul,  Sergius 
Paulus,  a  man  of  understanding,"  while  again,  the  same 
title  of  proconsul  is  applied  to  Sergius  in  the  eighth  and 
twelfth  verses.  This  has  been  the  cause  of  much 
misunderstanding  and  of  no  small  reproach  hurled 
against  the  sacred  writer.  Let  us  inquire  into  its 
justice  and  the  facts  of  the  case.  The  Roman  provinces 
were  divided  into  two  classes,  senatorial  and  imperial. 
The   senatorial    provinces  were   ruled    by   proconsuls 


204  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

appointed  by  the  Senate ;  the  imperial  by  propraetors 
appointed  by  the  emperors.  This  arrangement  was 
made  by  Augustus  Caesar,  and  is  reported  to  us  by 
Strabo  who  lived  and  wrote  during  St.  Paul's  early 
manhood.  But  now  a  difficulty  arises.  Strabo  gives 
us  the  list  of  the  provinces  senatorial  and  imperial 
alike,  and  expressly  classes  Cyprus  amongst  the 
imperial  provinces,  which  were  ruled  by  propraetors 
and  not  by  proconsuls.  In  the  opinion  of  the  older 
critics,  St.  Luke  was  thus  plainly  convicted  of  a 
mistake  and  of  a  flagrant  contradiction  of  that  great 
authority  the  geographer  Strabo.  But  it  is  never  safe 
to  jump  to  conclusions  of  that  kind  with  respect  to  a 
contemporaneous  writer  who  has  proved  himself  accu- 
rate on  other  occasions.  It  is  far  better  and  far  safer 
to  say,  Let  us  wait  awhile,  and  see  what  further  investi- 
gations will  reveal.  And  so  it  has  proved  in  this 
special  case.  Strabo  tells  us  of  the  original  arrangement 
made  about  thirty  years  b.c.  between  the  Emperor 
Augustus  and  the  .Senate,  when  Cyprus  was  most 
certainly  numbered  amongst  the  imperial  provinces ; 
but  he  omits  to  tell  us  what  another  historian  of  the 
same  century,  Dion  Cassius,  does  relate,  that  the  same 
Emperor  modified  this  arrangement  five  years  later, 
handing  Cyprus  and  Gallia  Narbonensis  over  to  the  rule 
of  the  Senate,  so  that  from  that  date  and  henceforth 
tliroughout  the  first  century  of  our  era  Cyprus  was 
governed  by  proconsuls  alone,  as  St.  Luke  most  accu- 
rately, though  only  incidentally,  reports.^     Here,  too, 

'  The  words  of  Dion  are:  "Eo  tempore  Cyprum  ac  Galliam  Narho- 
nensem,  quia  nihil  arniis  suis  indigerent,  populo  reddidit ;  atque  ita 
proconsules  etiam  in  istas  pravincias  mitti  coeperunt."  See  the  works  of 
Dion,  edited  by  H.  Valerius,  vol.  i.,  p.  733  (Hamburg,  1750).  Valerius, 
in  his  note  on  this  passage,  notes  the  inaccuracies  into  which  the  older 
critics — Grotius,  Hammond,  Baronius — had  fallen  about  Acts  xiii.  7. 


xiv.  1, 26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  205 

the  results  of  modern  investigation  among  inscriptions 
and  coins  have  come  in  to  supplement  and  support 
the  testimony  of  historians.  The  Greek  inscriptions 
discovered  prior  to  and  during  the  earlier  half  of  this 
century  have  been  collected  together  in  Boeckh's  Corpus 
of  Greek  Inscriptions,  which  is,  indeed,  a  vast  repertory 
of  original  documents  concerning  the  life,  Pagan  and 
Christian,  of  the  Greek  world.  In  the  inscriptions 
numbered  2631  and  2632  in  that  valuable  work  we 
have  the  names  of  Q.  Julius  Cordus  and  L.  Annius 
Bassus  expressly  mentioned  as  proconsuls  of  Cyprus 
in  A.D.  51,52;  while  on  coins  of  Cyprus  have  been  found 
the  names  of  Cominius  Proclus  and  Quadratus,  who  held 
the  same  office.  But  the  very  latest  investigations  have 
borne  striking  testimony  to  the  same  fact.  The  name 
of  the  very  proconsul  whom  St.  Paul  addressed  appears 
on  an  inscription  discovered  in  our  own  time.  Cyprus 
has  been  thoroughly  investigated  since  it  passed  into 
British  hands,  specially  by  General  Cesnola,  who  has 
written  a  work  on  the  subject  which  is  well  worth 
reading  by  those  who  take  an  interest  in  Scripture  lands 
and  the  scenes  where  the  apostles  laboured.  In  that 
work,  p.  425,  Cesnola  tells  us  of  a  mutilated  inscription 
which  he  recovered  dealing  with  some  subject  of  no 
special  importance,  but  bearing  the  following  precious 
notice  giving  its  date  as  "Under  Paulus  the  Proconsul"; 
proving  to  us  by  contemporary  evidence  that  Sergius 
Paulus  ruled  the  island,  and  ruled  it  with  the  special 
title  of  proconsul.  Surely  an  instance  like  this— and 
we  shall  have  several  such  to  notice — is  quite  enough  to 
make  fair  minds  suspend  their  judgment  when  charges 
of  inaccuracy  are  alleged  against  St.  Luke  dependent 
upon  our  own  ignorance  alone  of  the  entire  facts  of  the 
case.     A  wider  knowledge,  a  larger  investigation  we 


2o6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

may  well  be  sure  will  suffice  to  clear  the  difficulty  and 
vindicate  the  fair  fame  of  the  sacred  historian. 

From    Cyprus    the    apostles    passed    over    to    the 
continent,  and  opened  their  missionary  work  at  Antioch 
of  Pisidia,  where  the  first  recorded  address  of  St.  Paul 
was  delivered.     This  sermon,  delivered  in  the  Pisidian 
synagogue,  is  deserving  of  our  special  notice  because 
it  is  the  only  missionary  address  delivered  by  St.  Paul 
to  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  which  has  been  handed 
down  to  us,  unless  we  include  the  few  words  delivered 
to    the    Roman    Jews    reported    in    the    twenty-eighth 
chapter    from    the    seventeenth    to    the    twenty-eighth 
verses.     Let    us   briefly  analyse   it,   premising  that   it 
should   be  carefully   compared   with  the    addresses  of 
St.  Peter  to  the  Jews  upon  the  Day  of  Pentecost  and 
with   the  speech  delivered  by  St.  Stephen  before  the 
Sanhedrin,  when  all  three  will  be  found  to  run  upon 
the  same  lines.     The  apostles  having  reached  Antioch 
waited  until  the  Sabbath  came  round,  and  then  sought 
the  local  meeting-place  of  the  Jews.       The    apostles 
felt    indeed   that    they    were   entrusted   with    a    great 
mission   important    for  the  human  race,  but  yet  they 
knew  right  well  that  feverish  impetuosity  or  restless 
activity  was  not  the  true  way  to  advance  the   cause 
they   had    in    hand.      They    did   not    believe  in  wild 
irregular  actions  which  only  stir  up  opposition.     They 
were   calm   and   dignified   in   their  methods,   because 
they  were   consciously   guided    by   the  Divine  Spirit 
of  Him  concerning  whom  it  was  said  in  the  days  of 
His  flesh,   "  He  did  not  strive  nor   cry,    neither   did 
any   man  hear  His  voice   in   the   streets."      On   the 
Sabbath   day  they  entered  the   synagogue,   and   took 
their  place  on  a  bench  set  apart  for  the  reception  of 
those  who  were  regarded  as  teachers.     At  the  conclu- 


xiv.1,26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  207 

sion  of  the  public  worship  and  the  reading  of  the 
lessons  out  of  the  law  and  the  prophets,  such  as  still 
are  read  in  the  sjmagogue  worship,  the  Rulers  of  the 
Synagogue  sent  to  them  the  minister  or  apostle  of  the 
synagogue  intimating  their  permission  to  address  the 
assembled  congregation,  whereupon  St.  Paul  arose  and 
delivered  an  address,  of  which  the  following  is  an 
analysis.  St.  Paul  opened  his  sermon  by  a  reference 
to  the  lessons  which  had  just  been  read  in  the  service, 
which — as  all  the  writers  of  the  Apostle's  life,  Lewin, 
Conybeare  and  Howson,  and  Archdeacon  Farrar,  agree 
— were  taken  from  the  first  chapter  of  Deuteronomy  and 
the  first  of  Isaiah.  He  points  out,  as  St.  Stephen  had 
done,  the  providential  dealings  of  God  with  their  fore- 
fathers from  the  time  of  the  original  choice  of  Abraham 
down  to  David.  The  Jews  had  been  divinely  guided 
throughout  their  Mstory  down  to  David's  days,  and 
that  Divine  guidance  had  not  then  ceased,  but  continued 
down  to  the  present,  as  the  Apostle  then  proceeds  to 
show.  In  David's  seed  there  had  been  left  a  hope  for 
Israel  which  every  true  Jew  still  cherished.  He  then 
announces  that  the  long-cherished  hope  had  now  at 
last  been  fulfilled.  This  fact  depended  not  on  his 
testimony  alone.  The  Messiah  whom  they  had  long 
expected  had  been  preceded  by  a  prophet  whose 
reputation  had  spread  into  these  distant  regions,  and 
had  gained  disciples,  as  we  shall  afterwards  find,  at 
Ephesus.  John  the  Baptist  had  announced  the  Messiah's 
appearance,  and  proclaimed  his  own  inferiority  to  Him. 
But  then  an  objection  occurs  to  the  Apostle  which 
might  naturally  be  raised.  If  John's  reputation  and 
doctrine  had  penetrated  to  Antioch,  the  story  of  the 
crucifixion  of  Jesus  may  also  have  been  reported  there, 
and  the  local  Jews  may  therefore  have  concluded  that 


2o8  tHE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

such  an  ignominious  death  was  conclusive  against  the 
claims  of  Jesus  ?  The  Apostle  then  proceeds  to  show 
how  that  the  providential  rule  of  God  had  been  exercised 
even  in  that  matter.  The  wrath  of  man  had  been 
compelled  to  praise  God,  and  even  while  the  rulers  at 
Jerusalem  were  striving  to  crush  Jesus  Christ  they  were 
in  reality  fulfilling  the  voices  of  the  prophets  which 
went  beforehand  and  proclaimed  the  sufferings  of  the 
Messiah  exactly  as  they  had  happened.  And  further 
still,  God  had  set  His  seal  to  the  truth  of  the  story  by 
raising  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead  according  to  the  pre- 
dictions of  the  Old  Testament,  which  he  expounds  after 
the  manner  of  the  Jewish  schools,  finding  a  hint  of  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ  in  Isaiah  Iv.  3  :  "  I  will  give 
you  the  holy  and  sure  blessings  of  David " ;  and  a 
still  clearer  one  in  Psalm  xvi.  10  :  "Thou  wilt  not  give 
Thine  Holy  One  to  see  corruption."  The  Apostle, 
after  quoting  this  text,  which  from  its  use  by  St.  Peter 
on  the  Day  of  Pentecost  seems  to  have  been  a  passage 
commonly  quoted  in  the  Jewish  controversy,  terminates 
his  discourse  with  a  proclamation  of  the  exalted  bless- 
ings which  the  Messiah  has  brought,  indicating  briefly 
but  clearly  the  universal  character  of  the  gospel 
promises,  and  finishing  with  a  warning  against  stupid 
obstinate  resistance  drawn  from  Habakkuk  i.  5,  which 
primarily  referred  to  the  disbelief  in  impending 
Chaldaean  invasion  exhibited  by  the  Jews,  but  which 
the  Apostle  applies  to  the  Jews  of  Antioch  and  their 
spiritual  dangers  arising  from  similar  wilful  obstinacy. 

We  have  of  course  not  much  more  than  the  heads 
of  the  apostolic  sermon.  Five  or  seven  minutes  of  a 
not  very  rapid  speaker  would  amply  suffice  to  exhaust 
the  exact  words  attributed  to  St.  Paul.  He  must  have 
enlarged  on   the  various  topics.     He  could  not  have 


xiv.  1, 26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  209 

introduced  John  the  Baptist  in  the  abrupt  manner  in 
which  he  is  noticed  in  the  text  of  our  New  Testament. 
It  seems  quite  natural  enough  to  us  that  he  should  be 
thus  named^  because  John  occupies  a  very  high  and 
exalted  position  in  our  mental  horizon  from  our  earliest 
childhood.  But  who  was  John  the  Baptist  for  these 
Jewish  settlers  in  the  Pisidian  Antioch  ?  He  was 
simply  a  prophet  of  whom  they  may  have  heard  a 
vague  report,  who  appeared  before  Israel  for  a  year  or 
two,  and  then  suffered  death  at  the  hands  of  Herod 
the  Tetrarch :  and  so  it  must  have  been  with  many 
other  topics  introduced  into  this  discourse.  They  must 
have  been  much  more  copiously  treated,  elaborated, 
discussed,  or  else  the  audience  in  the  Pisidian  synagogue 
must  have  loved  concentrated  discourse  more  keenly 
than  any  other  assembly  that  ever  met  together. 
And  yet,  though  tK'e  real  discourse  must  have  been 
much  longer — and  did  we  only  possess  the  sermon  in 
its  fulness  many  a  difficulty  which  nov/  puzzles  us 
would  disappear  at  once^we  can  still  see  the  line  of 
the  apostolic  argument  and  grasp  its  force.  The 
Apostle  argues,  in  fact,  that  God  had  chosen  the  original 
fathers  of  the  Jewish  race.  He  had  gone  on  confer- 
ring ever  fresh  and  larger  blessings  in  the  wilderness, 
in  Canaan,  under  the  Judges,  and  then  under  the 
Kings,  till  the  time  of  David,  from  whose  seed  God 
had  raised  up  the  greatest  gift  of  all  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ,  through  whom  blessings  unknown  before 
and  unsurpassed  were  offered  to  mankind.  St.  Paul 
contends  exactly  as  St.  Stephen  had  done,  that  true 
religion  has  been  a  perpetual  advance  and  develop- 
ment ;  that  Christianity  is  not  something  distinct  from 
Judaism,  but  is  essentially  one  with  it,  being  the  flower 
of  a  plant  which  God  Himself  had  planted,  the  crown 
VOL.  II.  14 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


and  glory  of  the  work  which  He  had  Hunself  begun. 
This  address,  as  we  have  already  noticed  in  the  preface 
to  the  first  volume  of  this  work,  will  repay  careful 
study ;  for  it  shows  the  methods  adopted  by  the  early 
Christian  when  dealing  with  the  Jews.-^  They  did  not 
attack  any  of  their  peculiar  views  or  practices,  but 
confining  themselves  to  what  they  held  in  common 
strove  to  convince  them  that  Christianity  was  the  logical 
outcome  of  their  own  principles. 

The  results  of  this  address  were  very  indicative  of 
the  future.  The  Jews  of  the  synagogue  seem  to  have 
been  for  a  time  impressed  by  St.  Paul's  words.  Several 
of  them,  together  with  a  number  of  the  proselytes, 
attached  themselves  to  him  as  his  disciples,  and  were 
further  instructed  in  the  faith.  The  proselytes  espe- 
cially must  have  been  attracted  by  the  Apostle's  words. 
They  were,  like  Cornelius,  Proselytes  of  the  Gate,  who 
observed  merely  the  seven  precepts  of  Noah  and  re- 
nounced idolatry,  but  were  not  circumcised  or  subject 
to  the  restrictions  and  duties  of  the  Jewish  ritual. 
They  must  have  welcomed  tidings  of  a  religion  embody- 
ing all  that  which  they  venerated  in  the  Jewish  Law 
and  yet  devoid  of  its  narrowness  and  disadvantages. 

Next  Sabbath  the  whole  city  was  stirred  with  excite- 
ment, and  then  Jewish  jealousy  burst  into  a  flame. 
They  saw  that  their  national  distinctions  and  glory 
were  in  danger.  They  refused  to  listen  or  permit  any 
further  proclamation  of  what  must  have  seemed  to 
them  a  revolutionary  teaching  disloyal  to  the  tradi- 
tions and  existence  of  their  religion  and  their  nation. 
They  used  their  influence  therefore  with  the  chief  men 
of  the  city,  exercising  it  through  their  wives,  who  were 


Cf.  vol.  i.,  pp.  xi,  300. 


?.6.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR. 


in  many  cases  attracted  by  the  Jewish  worship,  or  who 
may  have  been  themselves  of  Jewish  birth,  and  the 
result  was  that  the  apostles  were  driven  forth  to  preach 
in  other  cities  of  the  same  central  region  of  Asia  Minor. 
This  was  the  first  attack  made  by  the  Jews  upon  St. 
Paul  in  his  mission  journeys.  He.  had  already  had 
experience  of  their  hostility  at  Damascus  and  at 
Jerusalem,  but  this  hostility  was  doubtless  provoked 
by  reason  of  their  resentment  at  the  apostasy  to  the 
Nazarene  sect  of  their  chosen  champion.  But  here  at 
Antioch  we  perceive  the  first  symptom  of  that  bitter 
hostility  to  St.  Paul  because  of  his  catholic  principles, 
his  proclamation  of  salvation  as  open  to  all  alike,  Jew 
or  Gentile,  free  from  any  burdensome  or  restrictive 
conditions,  a  hostility  which  we  shall  find  persistently 
pursuing  him,  both^  within  the  Church,  and  still  more 
without  the  Church,  at  Iconium,  at  Lystra,  at  Thessa- 
lonica,  at  Corinth,  and  at  Jerusalem.  It  would  seem 
indeed  as  if  the  invention  of  the  term  "  Christian  "  at 
Antioch  marked  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  early 
Church.  Henceforth  St.  Paul  and  his  friends  became 
the  objects  of  keenest  hatred,  because  the  Jews  had 
recognised  that  they  taught  a  form  of  belief  absolutely 
inconsistent  with  the  Jewish  faith  as  hitherto  known ; 
a  hatred  which  seems,  however,  to  have  been  limited 
to  St.  Paul  and  his  Antiochene  friends,  for  the  tempo- 
rising measures  and  the  personal  prejudices,  the  whole 
atmosphere,  in  fact,  of  the  Jerusalem  Church  led  the 
unbelieving  Jews  to  make  a  broad  distinction  between 
the  disciples  at  Jerusalem  and  the  followers  of  St.  Paul 
IV.  So  far  we  have  dealt  with  St.  Paul's  address  at 
Antioch  as  typical  of  his  methods  in  dealing  with  the 
Jews,  and  their  treatment  of  the  Apostle  as  typical  of  that 
hostility  which  the  Jews  ever  displayed  to  the  earliest 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


teachers  of  Christian  truth,  as  witnessed  not  only  by  the 
New  Testament,  but  also  by  the  writings  and  histories 
of  Justin  Martyr,  and  of  Polycarp  of  Smyrna,  and  of 
all  the  early  apologists.  But  we  are  not  left  in  this 
typical  Church  history  without  a  specimen  of  St.  Paul's 
earlier  methods  when  dealing  with  the  heathen.  St. 
Paul,  after  his  rejection  at  Antioch,  escaped  to  Iconium, 
sixty  miles  distant,  and  thence,  when  Jewish  persecu- 
tion again  waxed  hot,  betook  himself  to  Lystra,  some 
forty  miles  to  the  south.  There  the  Apostle  found  him- 
self in  a  new  atmosphere  and  amid  new  surroundings. 
Antioch  and  Iconium  had  large  Jewish  populations, 
and  were  permeated  with  Jewish  ideas.  Lystra  was  a 
thoroughly  Gentile  town  with  only  a  very  few  Jewish 
inhabitants.  The  whole  air  of  the  place — its  manners, 
customs,  popular  legends — was  thoroughly  pagan. 
This  offered  St.  Paul  a  new  field  for  his  activity,  of 
which  he  availed  himself  right  diligently,  finishing  up 
his  work  with  healing  a  lifelong  cripple,  a  miracle 
which  so  impressed  the  mob  of  Lystra  that  they  im- 
mediately cried  out  in  the  native  speech  of  Lycaonia, 
"  The  gods  are  coming  down  to  us  in  the  likeness  of 
men,"  calling  Barnabas  Jupiter,  on  account  of  his  lofty 
stature  and  more  commanding  appearance,  and  Paul 
Mercurius  or  Hermes,  because  of  his  more  insignificant 
size  and  more  copious  eloquence.  Here  again  we  have, 
in  our  writer's  words,  an  incidental  and  even  uncon- 
scious witness  to  the  truth  of  our  narrative.  The  cry 
of  the  men  of  Lystra,  these  rude  barbarian  people  of 
the  original  inhabitants  of  the  land,  who,  though  they 
could  understand  Greek,  naturally  fell  back  on  their 
native  Lycaonian  language  to  express  their  deeper  feel- 
ings,— this  cry,  I  say,  refers  to  an  ancient  legend  con- 
nected with  their  history,  of  which  we  find  a  lengtheneO 


xiv.  1,26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  213 

account  in  the  works  of  the  poet  Ovid.  Jupiter  at- 
tended by  Mercury  once  descended  to  visit  the  earth 
and  see  how  man  was  faring.  Some  scoffed  at  the 
deities,  and  were  punished.  Others  received  them,  and 
were  blessed  accordingly.^  The  wondrous  work  per- 
formed on  the  cripple  naturally  led  the  men  of  Lj^stra 
to  think  that  the  Divine  Epiphany  had  been  repeated. 
The  colony  of  Lystra — for  Lystra  was  a  Roman  colony  ^ 
— was  devoted  to  the  worship  of  Jupiter,  in  memory 
doubtless  of  this  celebrated  visit.  A  temple  to  Jupiter 
stood  before  and  outside  the  gate  of  the  city,  as  the 
temple  of  Diana  stood  outside  the  gate  of  Ephesus, 
lending  sanctity  and  protection  to  the  neighbouring 
town.  The  priest  and  the  people  act  upon  the  spur 
of  the  moment.  They  bring  victims  and  garlands 
prepared  to  offer  sacrifice  to  the  deities  who,  as 
they  thought,  had  revisited  their  ancient  haunts.  They 
were  approaching  the  house  where  the  apostles  were 
dwelling — perhaps  that  of  Lois  and  Eunice  and  Timothy 
—when  Paul  sprang  forward  and  delivered  a  short  im- 
passioned address  deprecating  the  threatened  adoration. 
Let  us  quote  the  address  in  order  that  we  may  see 
its  full  force :  "  Sirs,  why  do  ye  these  things  ?  We 
also  are  men  of  like  passions  with  you,  and  bring  you 
good  tidings,  that  ye  should  turn  from  these  vain  things 
unto  the  living  God,  who  made  the  heaven  and  the 

'  See  the  story  of  Philemon  and  Baucis  as  told  in  Smith's  Dictionary 
of  Classical  Biography  and  Mythology. 

^  The  site  of  Lystra  and  the  fact  that  it  was  a  Roman  colony  were 
unknown  till  1884,  when  Sterrett  discovered  an  inscription  which 
ascertained  both  facts  :  see  Ramsay's  Historical  Geography  of  Asia 
Minor,  p.  332,  and  Sterrett's  Epigraph.  Journey,  already  quoted,  from 
"  Papers  of  American  School  at  Athens,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  142  (Boston,  i888). 
Artemas,  one  of  the  seventy  disciples,  is  said  to  have  been  bishop  of 
Lystra  :  see  Acta  Sanct, ,  June  20th,  p.  67. 


214  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

earth  and  the  sea,  and  all  that  in  them  is  :  who  in  the 
generations  gone   by  suffered   all  the  nations  to  walk 
in  their  own  ways.     And  yet  He  left  not  Himself  with- 
out witness,  in  that  He  did  good,  and  gave  you  from 
heaven  rains  and   fruitful   seasons,  filling  your  hearts 
with  food  and  gladness."    How  very  different  St.  Paul's 
words  to  the  pagans  are  from  those  he  addressed  to 
the  Jews  and  proselytes,  believers  in  the  true  God  and 
in  the  facts  of  revelation  !     He  proves  himself  a  born 
orator,   able   to   adapt  himself  to  different   classes  of 
hearers,  and,  grasping  their  special  ideas  and  feelings, 
to  suit  his  arguments  to  their  various  conditions.     St. 
Paul's    short  address  on  this    occasion  may    be   com- 
pared with  his  speech  to  the  men  of  Athens,  and  the 
first  chapter  of  the   Epistle  to   the   Romans,  and   the 
various  apologies  composed  by  the  earliest  advocates 
of  Christianity  during  the  second  century.     Take,  for 
instance,  the  Apology  of  Aristides,  of  which  we  gave  an 
account  in  the  preface  to  the  first  volume  of  this  com- 
mentary on  the  Acts.     We  shall  find,  when  we  examine 
it  and  compare  it  with  the  various  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture to  which  we  have  just  referred,  that  all  run  upon 
exactly  the  same  lines.     They  all  appeal  to  the  evidence 
of  nature  and  of  natural  leligion.     They  say  not  one 
word  about  Scripture  concerning  which  their  hearers 
know  nothing.      They  are   not  like  unwise  Christian 
advocates  among  ourselves  who  think  they  can  over- 
throw an  infidel  with  a  text  out  of  Scripture,  begging 
the   question   at  issue,   the  very  point    to    be  decided 
being  this,   whether    there    is   such  a  thing  at  all  as 
Scripture.     St.  Paul  does  with  the  men  of  Lystra  and 
the  men  of  Athens  what  Aristides  did  when  writing 
for  the   Emperor  Hadrian,  and  what  every  wise  mis- 
sionary will  still  do  with  the  heathen  or  the  unbeliever 


xiv.  1,26.]  FIRST  MISSIONARY  TOUR.  215 

whose  salvation  he  is  seeking.     The  Apostle  takes  up 
the  ground  that  is  common  to  himself  and  his  hearers. 
He  shows    them  the  unworthiness  of  the  conception 
they  have  formed  of  the  Godhead.     He  appeals  to  the 
testimony  of  God's  works  and  to  the  interior  witness 
of  conscience  prophesying    perpetually  in    the    secret 
tabernacle  of  man's  heart,  and  thus  appealing  in  God's 
behalf  to  the  eternal  verities  and  evidences  of  nature 
exterior  and  interior  to  man,  he  vindicates  the  Divine 
authority,  glorifies  the  Divine  character,  and  restrains 
the  capricious  and  ignorant  folly  of  the  men  of  Lystra. 
Lastly,  we  find  in  this  narrative  two  typical  sugges- 
tions for  the  missionary  activity  of  the  Church  in  every 
age.     The  men  of  Lystra  with  marvellous  facility  soon 
changed  their  opinion  concerning  St.  Paul.     M.  Renan 
has  well  pointed  out  that  to  the  pagans  of  those  times 
a  miracle  was  no  i^cessary  proof  of  a  Divine  mission. 
It  was  just  as  easily  a  proof  to  them  of  a  diabolical  or 
magical  power.      The  Jews,   therefore,    who   followed 
St.  Paul,  had  no  difficulty  in  persuading  the  men  of 
Lystra  that  this  assailant  of  their  hereditary  deities  was 
a  mere  charlatan,  a  clever  trickster  moved  by  wicked 
powers  to  lead  them  astray.     Their  character  and  repu- 
tation as  Jews,  worshippers  of  one  God  alone,  would 
lend  weight  to  this  charge,  and  enable  them  the  more 
easily  to   effect  their  purpose  of  killing  St.   Paul,  in 
which  they  had  failed  at  Antioch  and  Iconium.     The 
fickle  mob  easily  lent  themselves  to  the  purposes  of  the 
Jews,   and  having  stoned  St.  Paul  dragged  his  body 
outside   the   city  walls,    thinking   him   dead.      A  few 
faithful  disciples  followed  the  crowd,  however.    Perhaps, 
too,  the  eirenarch  or  local  police  authority  with   his 
subordinates  had  interfered,  and  the  rioters,  apprehen- 
sive of  punishment  for  their  disturbance  of  the  peace, 


2i6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

had  retired.*  As  the  disciples  stood  around  weeping 
for  the  loss  they  had  sustained,  the  Apostle  awoke  from 
the  swoon  into  which  he  had  fallen,  and  was  carried 
into  the  city  by  the  faithful  few,  among  whom  doubtless 
were  Timothy  and  his  parents.  Lystra,  however,  was 
no  longer  safe  for  St.  Paul,  He  retired,  therefore,  some 
twenty  miles  to  Derbe,  where  he  continued  for  some 
time  labouring  with  success,  till  the  storm  and  the 
excitement  had  subsided  at  Lystra.  Then  he  returned 
back  over  the  same  ground  which  he  had  already 
traversed.  He  might  have  pushed  on  along  the  great 
Eastern  Road,  nigh  as  Derbe  was  to  the  passes  through 
the  Taurus  Range  which  led  directly  to  Cilicia  and 
Tarsus.  He  wished  to  go  back  indeed  to  Antioch.  He 
had  been  a  year  or  so  absent  on  this  first  excursion 
into  the  vast  fields  of  Gentile  paganism.  Wider  and 
more  extensive  missions  had  now  to  be  planned.  The 
wisdom  gained  by  personal  experience  had  now  to  be 
utilised  in  consultation  with  the  brethren.  But  still  a 
work  had  to  be  done  in  Lycaonia  and  Pisidia  if  the 
results  of  his  labours  were  not  to  be  lost.  He  had 
quitted  in  great  haste  each  town  he  had  visited,  forced 
out  by  persecution,  and  leaving  the  organisation  of  the 
Church  incomplete.  St.  Paul  came,  like  his  Master,  not 
merely  to  proclaim  a  doctrine  :  he  came  still  more  to 
found  and  organise  a  Divine  society.  He  returns  there- 
fore back  again  along  the  route  he  had  first  taken. 
He  does  not  preach  in  public,  nor  run  any  risks  of 
raising  riots   anew.      His   work   is  now   entirely  of  a 

'  The  Romans  had  a  local  police  in  Asia  Minor,  organised  after  the 
manner  of  our  own  local  police.  The  chief  of  the  police  in  each  town 
was  called  the  eirenarch,  and  was  annually  appointed  by  the  proconsul. 
The  Romans  never  made  the  mistake  of  placing  the  police  in  the 
hands  of  discontented  subjects.  See,  on  this  curious  topic,  Le  Bas  and 
Waddington's  Voyage  Archeologique,  t.  iii.,  pp.  27  and  255. 


1,26.1  FIRST  MISSIONARY   TOUR.  217 


character  interior  to  the  Church.  He  strengthens  the 
disciples  by  his  teaching,  he  points  out  that  earthly  trials 
and  persecutions  are  marks  of  God's  love  and  favour 
rather  than  tokens  of  His  wrath,  he  notes  for  them  that 
it  is  needful  "  through  many  tribulations  to  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  God,"  and  above  all  he  secures  the  per- 
manence of  his  work  by  ordaining  presbyters  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Church  at  Antioch,  with  prayer  and 
fasting  and  imposition  of  hands.  This  is  one  great 
typical  lesson  taught  us  here  by  St.  Paul's  return 
journey  through  Lystra,  Iconium,  and  Antioch  of  Pisidia. 
Preaching  and  evangelistic  work  are  important ;  but 
pastoral  work  and  Church  consolidation  and  Church 
order  are  equally  important,  if  any  permanent  fruits 
are  to  be  garnered  and  preserved.  And  the  other 
typical  lesson  is  implied  in  the  few  words  wherein  the 
termination  of  hiS  first  great  missionary  journey  is 
narrated.  "  When  they  had  spoken  the  word  in  Perga, 
they  went  down  to  Attalia ;  and  thence  they  sailed  to 
Antioch,  from  whence  they  had  been  committed  to  the 
grace  of  God  for  the  work  which  they  had  fulfilled." 

Antioch  was  the  centre  whence  Paul  and  Barnabas 
had  issued  forth  to  preach  among  the  Gentiles,  and  to 
Antioch  the  apostles  returned  to  cheer  the  Church  with 
the  narrative  of  their  labours  and  successes,  and  to 
restore  themselves  and  their  exhausted  powers  with 
the  sweetness  of  Christian  fellowship,  of  brotherly  love 
and  kindness  such  as  then  flourished,  as  never  before 
or  since,  amongst  the  children  of  men.  Mission  work 
such  as  St.  Paul  did  on  this  great  tour  is  very 
exhausting,  and  it  can  always  be  best  performed  from 
a  great  centre.  Mission  work,  evangelistic  work  of  any 
kind,  if  it  is  to  be  successful,  makes  terrible  demands 
on  man's  whole  nature,  physical,  mental,  spiritual,  and 


2i8  THE   ACTS  OF   THE  APOSTLES. 

bodily.  The  best  restorative  for  that  nature  when  so 
exhausted  is  conversation  and  intercourse  with  men 
of  like  minds,  such  as  St,  Paul  found  when,  returning 
to  Antioch,  he  cheered  the  hearts  and  encouraged  the 
hopes  of  the  Church  by  narrating  the  wonders  he  had 
seen  done  and  the  triumphs  he  had  seen  won  through 
the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.^ 

'  It  has  often  been  argued  that  the  gift  of  tongues  conferred  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  at  Pentecost  was  not  necessary,  as  Greek  was  universally 
spoken  in  Asia  Minor.  The  use  of  the  Lycaonian  tongue  at  Lystra,  even 
though  a  Roman  colony,  is  an  important  fact  on  the  other  side.  Mr, 
Ramsay,  in  his  IJisf.  Geog.  of  Asia  Minor,  says  ;  "  Greek  was  not  the 
popular  language  of  the  plateau,  even  in  the  third  century  after  Christ ; 
the  mass  of  the  people  spoke  Lycaonian  and  Galatian  and  Phrygian, 
though  those  who  wrote  books  wrote  Greek  and  those  who  governed 
spoke  Latin."  Cf.  pp.  98,  99  of  Mr.  Ramsay's  work,  and  p.  103  of  the 
previous  volume  of  this  commentary.  This  subject  of  the  original 
languages  of  Asia  Minor  and  their  survival  to  Christian  times  is  an 
interesting  and  novel  subject  of  study,  for  which  materials  are  gradually 
accumulating.  Thus  the  ancient  Cappadocian  language  is  discussed  and 
a  lexicon  of  it  compiled  in  a  monograph  which  appeared  in  the  Museum 
of  the  Evangelical  school  at  Smyrna  (1880-84),  pp.  47 — 265.  A  large 
number  of  inscriptions  in  the  Phrygian  language  have  also  been  re- 
covered. St.  Paul,  addressing  the  natives  of  the  central  plateau  of  Asia 
Minor  in  Greek,  would  have  been  like  an  Englishman  preaching  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Wales  or  of  Connemara  in  English.  I  never  heard  of  any 
powerful  i"esults  thus  following,  save  in  the  case  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis 
who  tells  us  inhis  Itinerary  in  Wales  of  the  melting  chai-acter  of  his  own 
Latin,  sermons  upon  the  Welsh  people,  though  they  did  not  understand 
a  word  of  them.  But  then  Giraldus  was,  to  say  the  least,  an  imaginative 
historian. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL. 

"  And  certain  men  came  down  from  Judrea  and  taught  the  brethren, 
saying,  Except  ye  be  circumcised  after  the  custom  of  Moses,  ye  cannot 
be  saved.  And  when  Paul  and  Barnabas  had  no  small  dissension  and 
questioning  with  them,  the  brethren  appointed  that  Paul  and  Barnabas, 
and  certain  other  of  them,  should  go  up  to  Jerusalem  unto  the  apostles 
and  elders  about  this  question.  .  .  .  And  the  apostles  and  tlie  elders 
were  gathered  together  to  consider  of  this  matter."  .  .  .  James  said,  "  My 
judgment  is,  that  M^e  trouble  not  them  which  fi-om  among  the  Gentiles 
turn  to  God," — Acts  xv^  i,  2,  6,  19. 

I  HAVE  headed  this  chapter,  which  treats  of  Acts  xv. 
and  its  incidents,  the  First  Christian  Council,  and 
that  of  set  purpose  and  following  eminent  ecclesiastical 
example.  People  often  hear  the  canons  of  the  great 
Councils  quoted,  the  canons  of  Nice,  Constantinople, 
Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon,  those  great  assemblies  which 
threshed  out  the  controversies  concerning  the  person 
and  nature  cf  Jesus  Christ  and  determined  with  mar- 
vellous precision  the  methods  of  expressing  the  true 
doctrine  on  these  points,  and  they  wonder  where  or 
how  such  ancient  documents  have  been  preserved. 
Well,  the  answer  is  simple  enough.  If  any  reader, 
curious  about  the  doings  of  these  ancient  assemblies, 
desires  to  study  the  decrees  which  proceeded  from 
them,  and  even  the  debates  which  occurred  in  them, 
he  need  only  ask  in  any  great  library  for  a  history  of 
the  Councils,  edited  either  by  Hardouin  or  Labbe  and 

219 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Cossart,  or,  best  and  latest  of  all,  by  Mansi.  They 
are  not  externally  very  attractive  volumes,  being  vast 
folios ;  nor  are  they  light  or  interesting  reading.  The 
industrious  student  will  learn  much  from  them,  how- 
ever ;  and  he  will  find  that  they  all  begin  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Councils  by  placing  at  the  very  head 
and  forefront  thereof  the  history  and  acts  of  the  Council 
of  Jerusalem  held  about  the  year  48  or  49  a.d,,  wherein 
we  find  a  typical  example  of  a  Church  synod  which  set 
a  fashion  perpetuated  throughout  the  ages  in  councils, 
conferences,  and  congresses  down  to  the  present  time. 
Let  us  inquire  then  into  the  origin,  the  procedure, 
and  the  results  of  this  Assembly,  sure  that  a  council 
conducted  under  such  auspices,  reported  by  such  a 
divinely  guided  historian,  and  dealing  with  such  burn- 
ing questions,  must  have  important  lessons  for  the 
Church  of  every  age.^ 

I.  The  question,  however,  naturally  meets  us  at  the 
very  threshold  of  our  inquiry  as  to  the  date  of  this 
assembly,  and  the  position  which  it  holds  in  the  process 
of  development  through  which  the  Christian  Church 
was  passing.  The  decision  of  this  Synod  at  Jerusalem 
did  not  finally  settle  the  questions  about  the  law  and 
its  obligatory  character.  The  relations  between  the 
Jewish  and  Gentile  sections  of  the  Church  continued 
in  some  places,  especially  in  the  East,  more  or  less 
unsettled  well  into  the  second  century ;  for  the  Jews 
found  it  very  hard  indeed  to  surrender  all  their  cherished 


'  Mansi,  A.D.  1692— 1769,  was  Archbishop  of  Lucca.  He  was  a  very 
learned  man.  Besides  vahiable  editions  of  other  men's  works  he 
published  his  Sdhoriun  Concilioriim  Collectio  in  thirty-one  vols,  folio, 
Florence  and  Venice,  1759-98.  Mansi  fixes  the  date  of  the  Jerusalem 
Synod  either  to  49  or  51  a.d.  He  counts  it  the  third  synod,  regarding 
as  the  first  synod  that  held  for  the  election  of  Matthias,  and  as  the 
second  that  assembled  for  the  choice  of  the  deacons. 


XV.  1,2,6,  19.]   THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  221 

privileges  and  ancient  national  distinctions.  But  the 
decree  of  the  Jerusalem  Assembly,  though  only  a  partial 
settlement,  "mere  articles  of  peace,"  as  it  has  been 
well  called,  to  tide  over  a  pressing  local  controversy, 
formed  in  St.  Paul's  hands  a  powerful  weapon  whereby 
the  freedom,  the  unity,  and  the  catholicity  of  the 
Church  was  finally  achieved.  Where,  then,  do  we 
locate  this  Synod  in  the  story  of  St.  Paul's  labours  ? 
The  narrative  of  the  Acts  clearly  enough  places  it 
between  the  first  and  the  second  missionary  tours  in 
Asia  Minor  undertaken  by  that  apostle.  Paul  and 
Barnabas  laboured  for  the  first  time  in  Asia  Minor 
probably  from  the  autumn  of  44  till  the  spring  or 
summer  of  46.  Their  work  at  that  time  must  have 
extended  over  at  least  eighteen  months  or  more.  Their 
journeys  on  foot  must  alone  have  taken  up  no  small 
time.  They  traversed  from  Perga,  where  they  landed, 
to  Derbe,  whence  they  turned  back  upon  their  work,  a 
space  of  at  least  two  hundred  and  fift}''  miles.  They 
made  lengthened  sojourns  in  large  cities  like  Antioch 
and  Iconium.  They  doubtless  visited  other  places  of 
which  we  are  told  nothing.  Then,  having  completed 
their  aggressive  work,  they  retraced  their  steps  along 
the  same  route,  and  began  their  work  of  consolidation 
and  Chuich  organisation,  which  must  have  occupied  on 
their  return  journey  almost  as  much,  if  not  more,  time 
that  they  had  spent  in  aggressive  labour  upon  their 
earlier  journey.  When  we  consider  all  this,  and  strive 
to  realise  the  conditions  of  life  and  travel  in  Asia  Minor 
at  that  time,  eighteen  months  will  not  appear  too  long 
for  the  work  which  the  apostles  actually  performed. 
After  their  return  to  Antioch  they  took  up  their  abode 
in  that  city  for  a  considerable  period.  "They  tarried 
no  little  time  with  the  disciples  "  are  the  exact  words 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


of  St.  Luke  telling  of  their  stay  at  Antioch.  Then 
comes  the  tale  of  Jewish  intrigues  and  insinuations, 
followed  by  debates,  strife,  and  oppositions  concerning 
the  universally  binding  character  of  the  Jewish  law, 
terminating  with  the  formal  deputation  from  Antioch  to 
Jerusalem.  These  latter  events  at  Antioch  may  have 
happened  in  a  few  weeks  or  months,  or  they  may  have 
extended  over  a  couple  of  years.  But  then,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  note  that  St.  Paul's  second  missionary 
journey  began  soon  after  the  Synod  of  Jerusalem.  That 
journey  was  very  lengthened.  It  led  St.  Paul  right 
through  Asia  Minor,  and  thence  into  Europe,  where  he 
must  have  made  a  stay  of  at  least  two  years.  He  was 
at  Corinth  for  eighteen  months  when  Gallio  arrived  as 
proconsul  about  the  middle  of  the  year  53,  and  pre- 
viously to  that  he  had  worked  his  way  through  Macedonia 
and  Greece,  St.  Paul  on  his  second  tour  must  have 
been  then  at  least  four  years  absent  from  Antioch, 
which  he  must  therefore  have  left  about  the  year  49 
or  50.  The  Synod  of  Jerusalem  must  therefore  be 
assigned  to  the  year  48  a.d,  or  thereabouts  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  not  quite  twenty  years  after  the  Crucifixion. 

II.  And  now  this  leads  us  to  consider  the  occasion  of 
the  Synod.  The  time  was  not,  as  we  have  said,  quite 
twenty  years  after  the  Crucifixion,  yet  that  brief  space 
had  been  quite  sufficient  to  raise  questions  undreamt 
of  in  earlier  days.  The  Church  was  at  first  completely 
homogeneous,  its  members  being  all  Jews ;  but  the 
admission  of  the  Gentiles  and  the  action  of  St.  Peter 
in  the  matter  of  Cornelius  had  destroyed  this  character- 
istic so  dear  to  the  Jewish  heart.  The  Divine  revelation 
at  Joppa  to  St.  Peter  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  Cornelius  had  for  a  time  quenched  the  opposition 
to   the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  to  baptism;  but,  as 


XV.  1,  2,  6,  19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  223 

we  have  already  said,  the  extreme  Jewish  party  were 
only  silenced  for  a  time,  they  were  not  destroyed. 
They  took  up  a  new  position.  The  case  of  Cornelius 
merely  decided  that  a  man  might  be  baptized  without 
having  been  previously  circumcised ;  but  it  decided 
nothing  in  their  opinion  about  the  subsequent  neces- 
sity for  circumcision  and  admission  into  the  ranks 
of  the  Jewish  nation.  Their  view,  in  fact,  was  the 
same  as  of  old.  Salvation  belonged  exclusively  to  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  therefore  if  the  converted  Gentiles 
were  to  be  saved  it  must  be  by  incorporation  into 
that  body  to  which  salvation  alone  belonged.  The 
strict  Jewish  section  of  the  Church  insisted  the  more 
upon  this  point,  because  they  saw  rising  up  in  the 
Church  of  Antioch,  and  elsewhere  among  the  Churches 
of  Syria  and  Cilicia,  a  grave  social  danger  threatening 
the  existence  of  their  nation  as  a  separate  people. 
There  were  just  then  two  classes  of  disciples  in  these 
Churches.  There  were  disciples  who  lived  after  the 
Jewish  fashion, — abstaining  from  unlawful  foods,  using 
food  slain  by  Jewish  butchers,  and  scrupulous  in 
washings  and  lustrations ;  and  there  were  Gentiles 
who  lived  after  the  Gentile  fashion,  and  in  especial  ate 
pork  and  things  strangled.  The  strict  Jews  knew 
right  well  the  tendency  of  a  majority  to  swallow  up 
a  minority,  specially  when  they  were  all  members  of 
the  same  religious  community,  enjoying  the  same  privi- 
leges and  partakers  of  the  same  hope.  A  majority 
does  not  indeed  necessarily  absorb  a  minority.  Roman 
Catholicism  is  the  religion  of  the  majority  in  Ireland 
and  France  ;  yet  it  has  not  absorbed  the  small  Pro- 
testant minority.  The  adherents  of  Judaism  were 
scattered  in  St.  Paul's  day  all  over  the  world,  yet 
Paganism  had  not  swallowed  them  up.     In  these  cases. 


224  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

however,  the  minority  have  been  completely  separated 
from  the  majority  by  a  middle  wall,  a  barrier  of  rigid 
discipline,  and  of  strong,  yea,  even  violent  religious 
repugnance.  But  the  prospect  now  before  the  strict 
Jewish  party  was  quite  different.  In  the  Syrian 
Church  as  they  beheld  it  growing  up  Jew  and  Gentile 
would  be  closely  linked  together,  professing  the  same 
faith,  saying  the  same  prayers,  joining  in  the  same 
sacraments,  worshipping  in  the  same  buildings.  All 
the  advantages,  too,  would  be  on  the  side  of  the 
Gentile.  He  was  freed  from  the  troublesome  restric- 
tions— the  more  troublesome  because  so  petty  and 
minute — of  the  Levitical  Law.  He  could  eat  what  he 
liked,  and  join  in  social  converse  and  general  life 
without  hesitation  or  fear.  In  a  short  time  a  Jewish 
disciple  would  come  to  ask  himself.  What  do  I  gain 
by  all  these  observances,  this  yoke  of  ordinances,  which 
neither  we  nor  our  fathers  have  been  able  perfectly 
to  bear  ?  If  a  Gentile  disciple  can  be  saved  with- 
out them,  why  should  I  trouble  myself  with  them  ? 
The  Jewish  party  saw  clearly  enough  that  toleration 
of  the  presence  of  the  Gentiles  in  the  Church  and  their 
admission  to  full  communion  and  complete  Christian 
privileges  simply  involved  the  certain  overthrow  of 
Jewish  customs,  Jewish  privileges,  and  Jewish  national 
expectations.  They  saw  that  it  was  a  case  of  war  to 
the  death,  one  party  or  the  other  must  conquer,  and 
therefore  in  self-defence  they  raised  the  cry,  **  Unless 
the  Gentile  converts  be  circumcised  after  the  manner  of 
Moses  they  cannot  be  saved." 

Antioch  was  recognised  at  Jerusalem  as  the  centre 
of  Gentile  Christianity.  Certain,  therefore,  of  the 
zealous,  Judaising  disciples  of  Jerusalem  repaired  to 
Antioch,  joined  the  Church,  and  secretly  proceeded  to 


XV.  1,2,6,  19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  225 


organise  opposition  to  the  dominant  practice,  using  for 
that  purpose  all  the  authorit}^  connected  with  the  name 
of  James  the  Lord's  brother,  who  presided  over  the 
Mother  Church  of  the  Holy  City. 

Now  let  us  see  what  position  St.  Paul  took  up  with 
respect  to  these  "  false  brethren  privily  brought  in,  who 
came  in  privily  to  spy  out  the  liberty  he  enjoyed  in 
Christ  Jesus."  Paul  and  Barnabas  both  set  themselves 
undauntedly  to  fight  against  such  teaching.  They  had 
seen  and  known  the  spiritual  life  which  flourished  free 
from  all  Jewish  observances  in  the  Church  of  the 
Gentiles.  They  had  seen  the  gospel  bringing  forth 
the  fruits  of  purity  and  faith,  of  joy  and  peace  in  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  they  knew  that  these  things  prepare  the 
soul  for  the  beatific  vision  of  God,  and  confer  a  present 
salvation  here  below ;  and  they  could  not  tolerate  the 
idea  that  a  Jewish  ceremony  was  necessary  over  and 
above  the  life  which  Christ  confers  if  men  are  to  gain 
final  salvation. 

Here,  perhaps,  is  the  proper  place  to  set  forth  St. 
Paul's  view  of  circumcision  and  of  all  external  Jewish 
ordinances,  as  we  gather  it  from  a  broad  review  of  his 
writings.  St.  Paul  vigorously  opposed  all  those  who 
taught  the  necessity  of  Jewish  rites  so  far  as  salva- 
tion is  concerned.  This  is  evident  from  this  chapter 
and  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  St.  Paul  had  not  the  slightest  objection 
to  men  observing  the  law  and  submitting  to  circum- 
cision, if  they  only  realised  that  these  things  were 
mere  national  customs  and  observed  them  as  national 
customs,  and  even  as  religious  rites,  but  not  as  necessary 
religious  rites.  If  men  took  a  right  view  of  circum- 
cision, St.  Paul  had  not  the  slightest  objection  to  it. 
It  was  not  to  circumcision  St.  Paul  objected,  but  to 

VOL.  II.  16 


226  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  extreme  stress  laid  upon  it,  the  intolerant  views 
connected  with  it.  Circumcision  as  a  voluntary  prac- 
tice, an  interesting  historical  relic  of  ancient  ideas  and 
customs,  he  never  rejected, — nay,  further,  he  even 
practised  it,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  case  of  Timothy  ; 
circumcision  as  a  compulsory  practice  binding  upon 
all  men  St.  Paul  utterly  abhorred.  We  may,  perhaps, 
draw  an  illustration  from  a  modern  Church  in  this 
respect.  The  Coptic  and  Abyssinian  Churches  retain 
the  ancient  Jewish  practice  of  circumcision.  These 
Churches  date  back  to  the  earliest  Christian  times, 
and  retain  doubtless  in  this  respect  the  practice  of 
the  primitive  Christian  Church.  The  Copts  circumcise 
their  children  on  the  eighth  day  and  before  they  are 
baptized  ;  but  they  regard  this  rite  as  a  mere  national 
custom,  and  treat  it  as  absolutely  devoid  of  any 
religious  meaning,  significance,  or  necessity.  St.  Paul 
would  have  had  no  objection  to  circumcision  in  this 
aspect  any  more  than  he  would  have  objected  to  a 
Turk  for  wearing  a  fez,  or  a  Chinaman  for  wearing 
a  pigtail,  or  a  Hindoo  for  wearing  a  turban.  National 
customs  as  such  were  things  absolutely  indifferent  in 
his  view.  But  if  Turkish  or  Chinese  Christians  were 
to  insist  upon  all  men  wearing  their  peculiar  dress  and 
observing  their  peculiar  national  customs  as  being 
things  absolutely  necessary  to  salvation,  St.  Paul,  were 
he  alive,  would  denounce  and  oppose  them  as  vigorously 
as  he  did  the  Judaisers  of  his  own  day.^ 

'  We  miss  the  true  standpoint  whence  to  judge  St.  Paul's  conduct 
aright,  when  we  think  as  people  generally  do  that  St.  Paul  opposed 
circumcision  per  se.  He  simply  opposed  it  when  connected  with  wrong 
ideas.  The  Judaising  disciples  viewed  the  Jewish  nation  as  the 
covenant  people  to  whom  alone  salvation  belonged.  St.  Paul  viewed 
the  Church  as  the  body  to  whom  alone  salvation  belonged,  admission 
to  which  was  gained  by  baptism.     If  any  Christian  holding  St.  Paul's 


XV.  I,  2,6,  19]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  227 


This  is  the  explanation  of  St.  Paul's  own  conduct. 
Some  have  regarded  him  as  at  times  inconsistent 
with  his  own  principles  with  regard  to  the  law  of 
Moses.  And  yet  if  men  will  but  look  closer  and 
think  more  deeply,  they  will  see  that  St.  Paul  never 
violated  the  rules  which  he  had  imposed  upon  himself. 
He  refused  to  circumcise  Titus,  for  instance,  because 
the  Judaising  party  at  Jerusalem  were  insisting  upon 
the  absolute  necessity  of  circumcising  the  Gentiles  if 
they  were  to  be  saved.  Had  St.  Paul  consented  to  the 
circumcision  of  Titus,  he  would  have  been  yielding 
assent,  or  seeming  to  yield  assent,  to  their  contention 
(see  Gal.  ii.  3).  He  circumcised  Timothy  at  Lystra 
because  of  the  Jews  in  that  neighbourhood  ;  not  indeed 
because  they  thought  it  necessary  to  salvation  that  an 
uncircumcised  man^  should  be  so  treated,  but  because 
they  knew  that  his  mother  was  a  Jewess,  and  the 
principle  of  the  Jewish  law,  and  of  the  Roman  law  too, 
was  that  a  man's  nationality  and  status  followed  that 
of  his  mother,  not  that  of  his  father,  so  that  the  son  of 
a  Jewess  must  be  incorporated  with  Israel.     Timothy 


view  chose  to  add  any  private  ceremony  such  as  circumcision  in  order 
to  gain  admission  into  any  human  society,  St.  Paul  would  not  have 
opposed  him  any  more  than,  ii  he  were  now  alive,  he  would  have  opposed 
or  denounced  a  Christian  man  because  he  became  a  Freemason,  or  an 
Orangeman,  or  joined  the  Oddfellows,  observing  the  special  ceremonies 
appointed  for  admission.  The  nearest  approach  in  later  times  to  the 
position  taken  up  by  the  strict  Jewish  party  will  be  found  in  the  history 
of  medieval  monasticism.  The  Cistercians  and  subsequently  the 
Mendicant  Orders  endeavoured  to  persuade  every  person  that  every  one 
who  wished  to  be  saved  must  join  their  Orders  and  assume  their 
peculiar  dress.  On  this  account  Fitz  Ralph,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  and 
his  friend  WickliiTe  denounced  them  most  vigorously.  I  have  given 
some  amusing  instances  of  the  opposition  to  the  Cistercians  evoked  two 
centuries  earlier  by  similar  claims  in  Ireland  and  ike  Anglo-Norman 
Church,  p.  42. 


228  THE  ACTS   OF   THE  APOSTLES. 


was  circumcised  in  obedience  to  national  law  and 
custom  not  upon  any  compromise  of  religious  principle. 
St.  Paul  himself  made  a  vow  and  cut  off  his  hair  and 
offered  sacrifices  in  the  Temple  as  being  the  national 
customs  of  a  Jew.  These  were  things  in  themselves 
utterly  meaningless  and  indifferent ;  but  they  pleased 
other  people.  They  cost  him  a  little  time  and  trouble ; 
but  they  helped  on  the  great  work  he  had  in  hand, 
and  tended  to  make  his  opponents  more  willing  to 
listen  to  him.  St.  Paul,  therefore,  with  his  great  large 
mind,  willing  to  please  others  for  their  good  to  edifica- 
tion, gratified  them  by  doing  what  they  thought  became 
a  Jew  with  a  true  national  spirit  beating  within  his 
breast.  Mere  externals  mattered  nothing  in  St.  Paul's 
estimation.  He  would  wear  any  vestments,  or  take 
any  position,  or  use  any  ceremony,  esteeming  them  all 
things  indifferent,  provided  only  they  conciliated  human 
prejudices  and  cleared  difficulties  out  of  the  way 
of  the  truth.  But  if  men  insisted  upon  them  as  things 
necessary,  then  he  opposed  with  all  his  might.  This 
is  the  golden  thread  which  will  rule  our  footsteps 
wandering  amid  the  mazes  of  this  earliest  Christian 
controversy.  It  will  amply  vindicate  St.  Paul's  con- 
sistency, and  show  that  he  never  violated  the  principles 
he  had  laid  down  for  his  own  guidance.  Had  the 
spirit  of  St.  Paul  animated  the  Church  of  succeeding 
ages,  how  many  a  controversy  and  division  would 
have  been  thereby  escaped  !  ^ 

'  I  have  often  noted  what  I  consider  an  unfair  use  of  this  controversy 
and  of  St.  Paul's  position  in  it.  Men  in  the  heat  of  argument  have 
represented  the  High  Church,  or  rather  the  so-called  Ritualists  in  the 
Church  of  England,  as  answering  to  the  Judaisers  of  St.  Paul's  day. 
There  seems  to  me,  however,  no  parallel  between  them.  The  Judaisers 
contended  for  a  certain  ceremony  as  necessaiy  to  salvation.  I  never 
heard  of  any  Ritualist  who  considered  any  of  his  dearest  practices  in 


XV.  1,2,6,  I9.J    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  229 

III.  Now  let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the  actual  history 
of  the  controversy  and  strife  which  raged  at  Antioch 
and  Jerusalem,  and  endeavour  to  read  the  lessons  the 
sacred  narrative  teaches.  What  a  striking  picture  of 
early  Church  life  is  here  presented  !  How  full  of 
teaching,  of  comfort,  and  of  warning  1  How  corrective 
of  the  false  notions  we  are  apt  to  cherish  of  the  state 
of  the  primitive  Church !  There  we  behold  the  Church 
of  Antioch  rejoicing  one  day  in  the  tidings  of  a  gospel 
free  to  the  world,  and  on  the  next  day  torn  with  dis- 
sension as  to  the  points  and  qualifications  necessary 
to  salvation.  For  we  must  observe  that  the  dis- 
cussion started  at  Antioch  touched  no  secondary  ques- 
tion, and  dealt  with  no  mere  point  of  ritual.  It  was 
a  fundamental  question  which  troubled  the  Church. 
And  yet  that  Church  had  apostles  and  teachers 
abiding  in  it  wh6  could  work  miracles  and  speak  with 
tongues,  and  who  received  from  time  to  time  direct 
revelations  from  heaven,  and  were  endowed  with  the 
extraordinary  presence  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Yet  there 
it  was  that  controversy  with  all  its  troubles  raised  its 
head,  and  "  Paul  and  Barnabas  had  no  small  dissen- 
sion "  with  their  opponents.  What  a  necessary  warning 
for  every  age,  and  specially  for  our  own,  we  behold  in 
this  narrative  !    Has  not  this  sacred  Book  a  message  in 

this  light.  He  may  view  them  as  lawful,  as  edifying,  and  very  necessary 
for  the  instruction  of  the  ])eople  ;  but  I  have  never  heard  of  their  most 
extreme  adherents  contending  for  their  necessity  to  salvation.  It  would 
be  just  as  true  to  identify  their  opponents  with  the  Judaisers,  because 
they  have  insisted,  and  often  with  great  vigour,  upon  the  use  of  the  black 
gown  in  the  pulpit.  I  have  known  extreme  men  to  take  up  the  position 
that  the  gospel  could  not  be  preached  where  the  black  gown  was  not  used. 
Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  Lije  of  Bishop  Blomfield 
of  London,  edited  by  his  son,  vol.  ii.,  will  see  some  striking  illustrations 
of  the  extent  to  which  such  views  were  pushed  half  a  century  ago. 


230  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


this  passage  specially  applicable  to  our  own  time  ?     A 
great  Romeward  movement  has  within  the  last  seventy 
years,    more    powerful  in    the  earlier  portion    of  that 
period  than  in  the  latter,  extented  itself  over  Europe. 
English  people  think  that  they  have  themselves  been 
the  only  persons  who  have  experienced  it.     But  this 
is  a  great  mistake.     Germany  forty  and  fifty  years  ago 
felt  it  also  to  a  large  extent.     And  what  was  the  great 
predisposing  cause  of  that  tendency  ?     Men  had  simply 
become  tired  of  the  perpetual  controversies  which  raged 
within  the  churches  and  communions  outside  the  sway 
of  Rome.     They  longed  for  the  perpetual  peace  and 
rest   which   seemed  to  them  to  exist  within  the  Papal 
domains,    and  they  therefore  flung    themselves  head- 
long into  the  arms  of  a  Church  which  promised  them 
relief  from   the  exercise  of  that  private  judgment  and 
personal  responsibility  which   had  become  for    them  a 
crushing  burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne.     And  yet  they 
forgot  several  things,  the  sudden  discovery  of  which  has 
sent  many  of  these  intellectual  and  spiritual  cowards 
in  various  directions,  some  back  to  their  original  homes, 
some    far    away    into    the    regions    of  scepticism    and 
spiritual  darkness.    They  forgot,  for  instance,  to  inquire 
how  far  the  charmer  who  was  alluring  them  from  the 
land  of  their  nativity  by  specious  promises  could  satisfy 
the  hopes  she  was    raising.     They    hoped   to  get  rid 
of  dissension  and  controversy  ;   but  did  they  ?     When 
they  had  left  their  childhood's  home  and  their  father's 
house  and  sought  the  house  of  the  stranger,  did  they 
find  there  halcyon  peace  ?     Nay,  rather  did  they  not 
find  there  as  bitter  strife,  nay,  far  more  bitter  strife,  on 
questions  like  the  Immaculate  Conception  ^nd    Papal 
Infallibility  than  ever  raged  at  home  ?     Did  they  not 
find,  and  do  they  not  find  still,  that  no  man  and  no 


XV.  1,2,6,  19.]   THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  231 

society  can  put  a  hook  in  the  jaws  of  that  Leviathan, 
the  right  of  private  judgment,  which  none  can  tame  or 
restrain,  and  which  asserts  itself  still  in  the  Roman 
Communion  as  vigorously  as  ever  even  now  when  the 
decree  of  Papal  infallibility  has  elevated  that  dogma 
into  the  rank  of  those  necessary  to  salvation  ?  Else 
whence  come  those  dissensions  and  discussions  between 
minimisers  and  maximisers  of  that  decree  ?  How  is  it 
that  no  two  doctors  or  theologians  will  give  precisely 
the  same  explanation  of  it,  and  that,  as  we  in  Ireland 
have  seen,  every  curate  fresh  from  Maynooth  claims 
to  be  able  to  express  his  own  private  judgment  and 
determination  whether  any  special  Papal  decree  or 
bull  is  binding  or  not  ?  ^  This  is  one  important  point 
forgotten  by  those  who  have  sought  the  Roman 
Communion  because  of  its  promises  of  freedom  from 
controversy,  Tf.ey  forgot  to  ask,  Can  these  promises 
be  fulfilled?  And  many  of  them,  in  the  perpetual 
unrest  and  strife  in  which  they  have  found  themselves 
involved  as  much  in  their  new  home  as  in  their  old, 
have  proved  the  specious  hopes  held  out  to  be  the  veriest 
mirage  of  the  Sahara  desert.  But  this  was  not  the  only 
omission  of  which  such  persons  were  guilty.  They 
forgot  that,  suppose  the  Roman  Church  could  fulfil  its 
promises  and  prove  a  religious  home  of  perfect  peace 

'  The  conduct  of  the  Romish  clergy  in  Ireland  when  the  Papal 
rescripts  were  issued  concerning  the  Parnell  tribute,  boycotting,  and  the 
Plan  of  the  Campaign  was  an  amusing  commentary  on  their  view  of 
Papal  Infallibility,  Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  search  the 
columns  of  the  Freemati's  journal  at  that  time  will  see  how  freely 
curates  even  criticised  the  Papal  infallible  utterances.  One  of  them 
remarked  to  me  at  the  time,  ' '  I  think  we  have  taught  the  old  gentleman 
a  lesson  he  will  not  forget,"  referring  to  the  Papal  rescripts.  Infallibility 
is  very  good  so  long  as  it  is  with  us,  but  when  against  us  it  becomes 
very  fallible.     Such  is  clearly  the  view  of  Irish  Roman  Catholics, 


232  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  freedom  from  diverging  opinions,  it  would  in  that 
case  have  been  very  unlike  the  primitive  Church.  The 
Church  of  Antioch  or  of  Jerusalem,  enjoying  the  ministry 
of  Peter  and  John  and  James  and  Paul, — these  pillar- 
men,  as  St.  Paul  calls  some  of  them, — was  much  more 
like  the  Church  of  England  of  fifty  years  ago  than  any 
society  which  offered  perfect  freedom  from  theological 
strife ;  for  the  Churches  of  ancient  times  in  their 
earliest  and  purest  days  were  swept  by  the  winds  of 
controversy  and  tossed  by  the  tempests  of  intellectual 
and  religious  inquiry  just  like  the  Church  of  England, 
and  they  took  exactly  the  same  measures  for  the  safety  of 
the  souls  entrusted  to  them  as  she  did.  They  depended 
upon  the  power  of  free  debate,  of  unlimited  discussion, 
of  earnest  prayer,  of  Christian  charity  to  carry  them 
on  till  they  reached  that  haven  of  rest  where  every 
doubt  and  question  shall  be  perfectly  solved  in  the  light 
of  the  unveiled  vision  of  God. 

Then,  again,  we  learn  another  important  lesson  from 
a  consideration  of  the  persons  who  raised  the  trouble 
at  Antioch.  The  opening  words  of  the  fifteenth 
chapter  thus  describes  the  authors  of  it :  "  Certain  men 
came  down  from  Judaea."  It  is  just  the  same  with  the 
persons  who  a  short  time  after  compelled  St.  Peter  to 
stagger  in  his  course  at  the  same  Antioch  :  "  When 
certain  came  from  James,  then  St.  Peter  separated 
himself,  fearing  them  of  the  circumcision"  (Gal.  ii.  12). 
Certain  bigots,  that  is,  of  the  Jewish  party,  came,  pre- 
tending to  teach  with  the  authority  of  the  Mother 
Church,  and  secretly  disturbing  weak  minds.  But 
they  were  only  pretenders,  as  the  apostolic  Epistle 
expressly  tells  us  :  "  Forasmuch  as  we  have  heard,  that 
certain  which  went  out  from  us  have  troubled  you  with 
words,  subverting  your  souls  ;  ...  to  whom  we  gave  no 


XV  I,  2,  6,  19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  233 

such  commandment."  These  religious  agitators,  with 
their  narrow  views  about  life  and  ritual,  displayed  the 
characteristics  of  like-minded  men  ever  since.  They 
secretly  crept  into  the  Church.  There  was  a  want  of 
manly  honesty  about  them.  Their  pettiness  of  vision 
and  of  thought  affected  their  whole  nature,  their  entire 
conduct.  They  loved  the  by-ways  of  intrigue  and 
fraud,  and  therefore  they  hesitated  not  to  claim  an 
authority  which  they  had  never  received,  invoking 
apostolic  names  on  behalf  of  a  doctrine  which  the 
apostles  had  never  sanctioned.  The  characteristics 
thus  displayed  by  these  Judaisers  have  ever  been  seen 
in  their  legitimate  descendants  in  every  church  and 
society.  East  and  West  alike.  Narrowness  of  mind, 
pettiness  and  intolerance  in  thought,  have  ever  brought 
their  own  penalty  with  them  and  have  ever  been  con- 
nected with  the  s^me  want  of  moral  uprightness.  The 
miserable  conception,  the  wretched  fragment  of  truth 
upon  which  such  men  seize,  elevating  it  out  of  its  due 
place  and  rank,  seems  to  destroy  their  sense  of  pro- 
portion, and  leads  them  to  think  it  worth  any  lie  which 
they  may  tell,  any  breach  of  Christian  charity  of  which 
they  may  be  guilty,  any  sacrifice  of  truth  and  honesty 
v/hich  they  may  make  on  behalf  of  their  beloved  idol. 
The  Judaisers  misrepresented  religious  truth,  and  in 
doing  so  they  misrepresented  themselves,  and  sacrificed 
the  great  interests  of  moral  truth  in  order  that  they 
might  gain  their  ends. 

IV.  The  distractions  and  controversies  of  Antioch 
were  overruled,  however,  by  the  Divine  providence  to 
the  greater  glory  of  God.  As  the  Judaisers  continually 
appealed  to  the  authority  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem, 
the  brethren  at  Antioch  determined  to  send  to  that 
body  and  ask  the  opinion  of  the  apostles  and   elders 


234  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


upon  this  question.  They  therefore  despatched  "  Paul 
and  Barnabas  and  certain  other  of  them,"  among  whom 
was  Titus,  an  uncircumcised  Gentile  convert,  as  a 
deputation  to  represent  their  own  views.  When  they 
came  to  Jerusalem  the  Antiochene  deputies  held  a 
series  of  private  conferences  with  the  leading  men  of 
Jerusalem.  This  we  learn,  not  from  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  but  from  St.  Paul's  independent  narrative 
in  Galatians  ii.,  identifying  as  we  do  the  visit  there 
recorded  with  the  visit  narrated  in  Acts  xv.-^  St,  Paul 
here  exhibits  all  that  tact  and  prudence  we  ever  trace 
in  his  character.  He  did  not  depend  solely  upon  his 
own  authority,  his  reputation,  his  success.  He  felt 
within  himself  the  conscious  guidance  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  aiding  and  guiding  a  singularly  clear  and  power- 
ful mind.  Yet  he  disdained  no  legitimate  precaution. 
He  knew  that  the  presence  and  guidance  of  the  Spirit 
does  not  absolve  a  man  anxious  for  the  truth  from 
using  all  the  means  in  his  power  to  ensure  its  success. 
He  recognised  that  the  truth,  though  it  must  finally 
triumph,  might  be  eclipsed  or  defeated  for  a  time 
through  man's  neglect  and  carelessness  ;  and  therefore 
he  engaged  in  a  series  of  private  conferences,  explain- 
ing difficulties,  conciliating  the  support,  and  gaining 
the  assistance  of  the  most  influential  members  of  the 
Church,  including,  of  course,  "  James,  Cephas,  and 
John,  who  were  reputed  to  be  pillars." 

Is  there  not  something  very  modern  in  the  glimpse 
thus  given  us  of  the  negotiations  and  private  meetings 
which  preceded  the  formal  meeting  of  the  Apostolic 
Council  ?  Some  persons  may  think  that  the  presence 
and  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  must  have  superseded 

'  The  reader  should  consult  what  Mr.  Findlay  has  written  on  this 
point  in  his  Galatians,  chs.  vi.  and  vii.,  pp.  92-112. 


XV.  I,  2,  6, 19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  235 


all  such  human  arrangements  and  forethought.  But 
the  simple  testimony  of  the  Bible  dispels  at  once  all  such 
objections,  and  shows  us  that  as  the  primitive  Church 
was  just  like  the  modern  Church,  torn  with  dissension, 
swept  with  the  winds  and  storms  of  controversy,  so  too 
the  divinely  guided  and  inspired  leaders  of  the  Church 
then  took  precisely  the  same  human  means  to  attain 
their  ends  and  carry  out  their  views  of  truth  as  now 
find  place  in  the  meetings  of  synods  and  convocations 
and  parliaments  of  the  present  time.  The  presence  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  did  not  dispense  with  the  necessity 
of  human  exertions  in  the  days  of  the  apostles;  and 
surely  we  may,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  similar 
human  exertions  in  our  time  may  be  quite  consonant 
with  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  our  modern  assemblies, 
overruling  and  guiding  human  plans  and  intrigues  to 
the  honour  of  God  and  the  blessing  of  man.  After 
these  private  conferences  the  apostles  and  elders  came 
together  to  consider  the  difficult  subject  laid  before 
them.  And  now  many  questions  rise  up  which  we  can 
only  very  briefly  consider.  The  composition  of  this 
Synod  is  one  important  point.  Who  sat  in  it,  and  who 
debated  there  ?  It  is  quite  clear,  from  the  text  of  the 
Acts,  as  to  the  persons  who  were  present  at  this  Synod. 
The  sixth  verse  says,  "  The  apostles  and  the  elders 
were  gathered  together  to  consider  of  this  matter " ; 
the  twelfth  verse  tells  us  that  "  all  the  multitude  kept 
silence,  and  hearkened  unto  Barnabas  and  Paul  re- 
hearsing what  signs  and  wonders  God  had  wrought 
among  the  Gentiles  by  them  "  ;  in  the  twenty-second 
verse  we  read,  "  Then  it  seemed  good  to  the  apostles 
and  the  elders,  with  the  whole  Church,  to  choose  men  out 
of  their  company,  and  to  send  them  to  Antioch  "  ;  while, 
finally,  in  the  twenty-third  verse  we  read  the  super- 


236  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

scription  of  the  final  decree  of  the  Council,  which  ran 
thus,  "  The  apostles  and  the  elder  brethren  unto  the 
brethren  which  are  of  the  Gentiles  in  Antioch  and 
Syria  and  Cilicia."  It  seems  to  me  that  any  plain  man 
reading  these  verses  would  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  whole  multitude,  the  great  body  of  the  Church  in 
Jerusalem,  were  present  and  took  part  in  this  assembly.^ 
A  great  battle  indeed  has  raged  round  the  words  of 
the  Authorized  Version  of  the  twenty-third  verse,  "  The 
apostles  and  elders  and  brethren  send  greeting  unto 
the  brethren  which  are  of  the  Gentiles,"  which  are  other- 
wise rendered  in  the  Revised  Version.  The  presence 
or  the  absence  of  the  **  and "  between  elders  and 
brethren  has  formed  the  battle-ground  between  two 
parties,  the  one  upholding,  the  other  opposing  the  right 
of  the  laity  to  take  part  in  Church  synods  and  councils. 
Upon  a  broad  review  of  the  whole  affair  this  Apostolic 
Assembly  seems  to  me  to  have  an  important  bearing 
upon  this  point.  There  are  various  views  involved. 
Some  persons  think  that  none  but  bishops  should  take 
part  in  Church  synods ;  others  think  that  none  but 
clergymen,  spiritual  persons,  in  the  technical  and  legal 
sense  of  the  word  "  spiritual,"  should  enter  these  assem- 
blies, specially  when  treating  of  questions  touching 
doctrine  and  discipline.^     Looking  at  the  subject  from 

'  The  fifth  verse  states  that  after  Paul  had  rehearsed  the  wonders 
done  among  the  Gentiles  certain  of  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees  rose  up 
saying,  "It  is  needful  to  circumcise  them."  Some  maintain  that  this 
was  in  a  missionary  meeting  before  the  Synod,  but  that  this  is  no  proof 
that  such  laymen,  if  they  were  laymen,  were  allowed  to  raise  the  question 
in  the  Synod.  Of  course  the  next  verse  states  that  "  the  apostles  and 
elders "  came  together  to  consider  this  matter  ;  but  it  also  states  that 
there  was  nuich  questioning  before  St.  Peter  opened  his  mouth  to  speak 
on  the  subject.  Surely  the  much  questioning  must  have  been  on  the 
part  of  the  "  certain  of  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees  who  believed  "  ! 

•  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  three  parties  otherwise  very  much  opposed 


XV.  1,2,6,  19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  237 

the  standpoint  of  the  Apostolic  Council,  we  cannot 
agree  with  either  party.  We  are  certainly  told  of  the 
speeches  of  four  individuals  merely — Paul,  Barnabas, 
Peter,  and  James — to  whom  may  be  conceded  the 
position  of  bishops,  and  even  more.  But,  then,  it  is 
evident  that  the  whole  multitude  of  the  Church  was 
present  at  this  Synod,  and  took  an  active  part  in  it. 
We  are  expressly  told  (vv,  4  and  5)  :  "When  they  were 
come  to  Jerusalem,  they  were  received  of  the  Church 
and  the  apostles  and  the  elders.  .  .  .  But  there  rose 
up  certain  of  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees  who  believed, 
saying.  It  is  needful  to  circumcise  them."  This  indeed 
happened  at  the  first  meeting  of  the  Church  held  to 
receive  the  Antiochene  deputation  when  they  arrived. 
But  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  difference 
between  the  constitution  and  authority  of  the  first 
and  second  meetings.  Both  were  what  we  should 
call  Ecclesiastical  Assemblies.  Laymen  joined  in  the 
discussions  of  the  first,  and  doubtless  layman  joined  in 
the  discussions  and  much  questioning  of  the  second. 
There  is  not  indeed  a  hint  which  would  lead  us  to 

unite  in  this  view :  the  extreme  High  Church  party  in  England,  the 
Roman  CathoHc  Church,  and  the  Wesleyan  Conference,  which  latter 
body  restrains  all  questions  of  doctrine  and  discipline  to  ministers  alone 
as  rigorously  as  either  of  the  others.  The  Presbyterian  Assemblies  are 
in  many  respects  open  to  the  same  charge,  the  elder.?  who  represent 
the  laity  being  ordained  Ly  imposition  of  hands  as  truly  as  the  ministers 
and  signing  the  same  doctrinal  tests.  I  cannot  say  how  far  this  may 
be  true  of  the  Established  Assembly  in  ScotJand,  but  as  far  as  the  Free 
Church  and  the  Irish  General  Assemblies  are  concerned,  I  am  bold  to 
say  that  no  unordained  layman  sits  in  thern.  I  was  much  amused  some 
time  ago  reading  the  charge  of  a  Wesleyan  President  of  Conference  to 
the  newly  ordained  ministers  of  the  Irish  Conference,  when  he  bid  them 
remember  that  Christ  had  entrusted  to  them  alone  the  care  of  all 
questions  touching  doctrine  and  discipline.  See  for  the  High  Anglican 
theoiy,  which  is  just  the  same  as  the  Wesleyan  President's,  Joyce's 
Acts  of  the  Church,  a.d.  1531— 1885,  p.  12. 


238  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


conclude  that  the  Pharisees,  who  rose  up  and  argued  on 
behalf  of  the  binding  character  of  the  law  of  Moses,  held 
any  spiritual  office  whatsoever.     So  far  as  the  sacred 
text    puts   it,  they  may  have  been    laymen    pure   and 
simple,  such  as  were  the  ordinary  Pharisees.     I  cannot, 
indeed,  see  how  any  member  of  the  Church  of  England 
can  consistently  maintain  either  from  Holy  Scripture, 
ancient    ecclesiastical    history,    or   the    history  of  his 
own    Church,    that   laymen    are    quite    shut    out   from 
councils  debating   questions  touching  Christian    faith, 
and  that  their  consideration  must  be  limited  to  bishops, 
or  at  least  clergymen   alone.     The  Apostolic   Church 
seems  to   have  admitted    the    freest   discussion.     The 
General  Councils    most  certainly   tolerated    very    con- 
siderable lay  interference.     The  Emperor  Constantine, 
though    not    even    baptized,    obtruded    much    of    his 
presence  and  exercised  much  of  his  influence  upon  the 
great   Nicene   Council.     Why  even   down   to   the  six- 
teenth century,  till  the  Tridentine  Council,  the  ambas- 
sadors of  the  great  Christian  Powers  of  Europe  sat  in 
Church  synods  as  representing  the  laity ;    and  it  was 
only  in  the  Council  of  the  Vatican,  which  met  in  1870, 
that  even  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  formally  denied 
the  right  of  the  people  to  exercise  a  certain  influence 
in   the  determination  of  questions  touching  faith  and 
discipline  by  the  exclusion   of  the   ambassadors  who 
had  in  every  previous   council  held  a  certain  defined 
place.     While  again,  when  we  come  to  the  history  of 
the    Church  of   England,  we  find    that  the  celebrated 
Hooker,  the  vindicator  of  its  Church  polity,  expressly 
defended  the  royal  supremacy  as  exercised  within  that 
Church   on  the  ground  that  the  king  represented   by 
delegation  the  vast  body  of  the  laity,  who  through  him 
exercised  a  real  influence  upon  all  questions,  whether 


XV.  I,  2,  6,  19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  239 

of  doctrine  or  discipline.  I  feel  a  personal  interest  in 
this  question,  because  one  of  the  charges  most  freely 
hurled  against  the  Church  of  Ireland  is  this,  that  she 
has  admitted  laymen  to  discussions  and  votes  con- 
cerning such  questions.  I  cannot  see  how  consistently 
with  her  past  history  as  an  established  Church  she 
could  have  done  otherwise.  I  cannot  see  how  the 
Church  of  England,  if  she  comes  in  the  future  to  be  dis- 
established, can  do  otherwise.  That  Church  has  always 
admitted  a  vast  amount  of  lay  interference,  even  prior 
to  the  Reformation,  and  still  more  since  that  important 
event.  Extreme  men  may  scoff  at  those  branches  of  their 
own  Communion  which  have  admitted  laymen  to  vote 
in  Church  synods  upon  all  questions  whatsoever ;  but 
they  forget  when  doing  so  that  statements  and  decrees 
most  dear  to  themselves  bear  manifest  traces  of  far 
more  extreme  lay  intervention.  The  Ornaments  Rubric, 
standing  before  th^  order  for  Morning  Prayer,  is  a 
striking  evidence  of  this.  It  is  dear  to  the  hearts  of 
many,  because  it  orders  the  use  of  eucharistic  vest- 
ments and  the  preservation  of  the  chancels  in  the 
ancient  style ;  but  on  what  grounds  does  it  do  so  ?  Let 
the  precise  words  of  the  rubric  be  the  answer :  "  Here 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  such  ornaments  of  the  Church 
and  of  the  ministers  thereof,  at  all  times  of  their 
ministration,  shall  be  retained,  and  be  in  use,  as  were 
in  this  Church  of  England,  by  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment, in  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Edward 
the  Sixth."  Objections  to  the  determinations,  rules, 
and  canons  of  the  Irish  Church  Synod  might  have  some 
weight  did  they  profess,  as  this  rubric  does,  to  have 
been  ordained  and  imposed  by  the  order  of  laymen 
alone.  But  when  the  bishops  of  a  Church  have  an 
independent  vote,  the  clergy  an  independent  vote,  the 


240  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

free  and  independent  vote  of  the  laity  is  totally 
powerless  by  itself  to  introduce  any  novelty,  and  is  only 
powerful  to  prevent  change  in  the  ancient  order.  I  do 
not  feel  bound  to  defend  some  ill-judged  expressions 
and  foolish  speeches  which  some  lay  representatives 
may  have  made  in  the  Irish  Church  Synod  as  again  no 
member  of  the  Church  of  England  need  trouble  himself 
to  defend  some  rash  speeches  made  in  Parliament  on 
Church  topics.  In  the  first  moments  of  unaccustomed 
freedom  Irish  laymen  did  and  said  some  rash  things, 
and,  overawing  the  clergy  by  their  fierce  expressions, 
may  have  caused  the  introduction  of  some  hasty  and 
ill-advised  measures.  But  sure  I  am  that  every  sincere 
member  of  the  Church  to  which  I  belong  will  agree 
that  the  admission  of  the  lay  representatives  to  a  free 
discussion  and  free  vote  upon  every  topic  has  had  a 
marvellous  influence  in  broadening  their  conceptions 
of  Scripture  truth  and  deepening  their  affections  and 
attachment  to  their  Mother  Church  which  has  treated 
and  trusted  them  thus  generously.^ 

V.  The  proceedings  of  the  Apostolic  Synod  next 
demand  our  attention.  The  account  which  has  been 
handed  down  is  doubtless  a  mere  outline  of  what  actually 
happened.  We  are  not  told  anything  concerning  the 
opening  of  the  Assembly  or  how  the  discussion  was 
begun.  St.  Luke  was  intent  merely  on  setting  forth 
the  main  gist  of  affairs,  and  therefore  he  reports  but 
two  speeches  and  tells  of  two  others.  Some  Christian 
Pharisee  having  put  forward  his  objections  to  the 
position  occupied  by  the   Gentile  converts,   St.    Peter 

'  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  refer  to  a  little  tract  of  my  own  on 
this  topic  published  at  the  time,  on  "  The  Work  of  the  Laity  in  the 
Church  of  Ireland,"  as  embodying  the  principles  of  Hooker  applied  to 
modern  times  and  needs. 


XV.  I,  2,  6,  19.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  241 

arose,  as  was  natural,  he  having  been  the  person 
through  whose  action  the  present  discussion  and 
trouble  had  originated.  St.  Peter's  speech  is  marked 
on  this  occasion  by  the  same  want  of  assumption  of 
any  higher  authority  than  belonged  to  his  brethren 
which  we  have  noted  before  when  objections  were 
taken  to  his  dealings  with  Cornelius.  His  speech 
claims  nothing  for  himself,  does  not  even  quote  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  simply  repeats  in 
a  concise  shape  the  story  of  the  conversion  of  Cornelius, 
points  out  that  God  put  no  difference  between  Jew  and 
Gentile,  suggesting  that  if  God  had  put  no  difference 
between  them  why  should  man  dare  to  do  so,  and 
then  ends  with  proclaiming  the  great  doctrine  of  grace 
that  men,  whether  Jews  or  Gentiles,  are  saved  through 
faith  in  Christ  alone,  which  purifies  their  hearts  and 
lives.  After  Peter's  speech  there  arose  James  the 
Lord's  brother,  wbo  from  ancient  times  has  been 
regarded  as  the  first  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and  who 
most  certainly,  from  the  various  references  to  him 
both  here  and  elsewhere  in  the  Acts  (chs.  xii.  17, 
xxi.  18)  and  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  seems  to 
have  occupied  the  suprem.e  place  in  that  Church. 
James  was  a  striking  figure.  There  is  a  long  account 
of  him  left  us  by  Hegesippus,  a  very  ancient  Church 
historian,  who  bordered  on  apostolic  times,  and  now 
preserved  for  us  in  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Eusebius, 
ii.,  23.  There  he  is  described  as  an  ascetic  and  a 
Nazarite,  like  John  the  Baptist,  from  his  earliest  child- 
hood. "  He  drank  neither  wine  nor  fermented  liquors, 
and  abstained  from  animal  food.  A  razor  never  came 
upon  his  head,  he  never  anointed  with  oil,  and  never 
used  the  bath.  He  alone  was  allowed  to  enter  the 
sanctuary.  He  never  wore  woollen,  but  linen  garments. 
VOL.  II.  16 


242  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

He  was  in  the  habit  of  entering  the  Temple  alone,  and 
was  often  found  upon  his  bended  knees,  and  interceding 
for  the  forgiveness  of  the  people ;  so  that  his  knees 
became  as  hard  as  camels',  in  consequence  of  his 
habitual  supplication  and  kneeling  before  God.  And 
indeed  on  account  of  his  exceeding  great  piety  he  was 
called  the  Just  and  Oblias,  which  signifies  the  Rampart 
of  the  People."  This  description  is  the  explanation  of 
the  power  and  authority  of  James  the  Just  in  the 
Apostolic  Assembly.  He  was  a  strict  legalist  himself. 
He  desired  no  freedom  for  his  own  share,  but  rejoiced 
in  observances  and  restrictions  far  beyond  the  common 
lot  of  the  Jews.  When  such  a  man  pronounced 
against  the  attempt  made  to  impose  circumcision  and 
the  law  as  a  necessary  condition  of  salvation,  the 
Judaisers  must  have  felt  that  their  cause  was  lost. 
St.  James  expressed  his  views  in  no  uncertain  terms. 
He  begins  by  referring  to  St.  Peter's  speech  and  the 
conversion  of  Cornelius.  He  then  proceeds  to  show 
how  the  prophets  foretold  the  ingathering  of  the 
Gentiles,  quoting  a  passage  (Amos  ix.  ii,  12)  which 
the  Jewish  expositors  themselves  applied  to  the  Messiah. 
His  method  of  Scriptural  interpretation  is  exactly  the 
same  as  that  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter.  It  is  very 
different  from  ours,  but  it  was  the  universal  method  of 
his  day ;  and  when  we  wish  to  arrive  at  the  meaning  of 
the  Scriptures,  or  for  that  matter  of  any  work,  we  ought 
to  strive  and  place  ourselves  at  the  standpoint  and 
amid  the  circumstances  of  the  writers  and  actors.  The 
prophet  Amos  speaks  of  the  tabernacle  of  David  as 
fallen  down.  The  rebuilding  of  it  is  then  foretold,  and 
James  sees  in  the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  this  pre- 
dicted rebuilding.  He  then  pronounces  in  the  most 
decided  language  against  "  troubling  those  who  from 


XV.  1,2,6,  ig.]    THE  FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COUNCIL.  243 

among  the  Gentiles  are  turned  to  God "  in  tlie  matter 
of  legal  observances,  laying  down  at  the  same  time  the 
concessions  which  should  be  demanded  from  the  Gentiles 
so  as  not  to  cause  offence  to  their  Jewish  brethren. 
The  sentence  thus  authoritatively  pronounced  by  the 
strictest  Jewish  Christian  was  natural^  adopted  by  the 
ApostoHc  Synod,  and  they  wrote  a  letter  to  the  disciples 
in  Syria  and  Cilicia  embodying  their  decision,  which  for 
a  time  settled  the  controversy  which  had  been  raised. 
This  epistle  begins  by  disclaiming  utterly  and  at  once 
the  agitators  who  had  gone  forth  to  Antioch  and  had 
raised  the  disturbances.  It  declared  that  circumcision 
was  unnecessary  for  the  Gentile  converts.  This  was 
the  great  point  upon  which  St.  Paul  was  most  anxious. 
He  had  no  objection,  as  we  have  already  said,  to  the 
Jews  observing  their  legal  rites  and  ceremonies,  but  he 
was  totally  opposed  to  the  Gentiles  coming  under  any 
such  rule  as  a  thuig  necessary  to  salvation.  The 
epistle  then  proceeds  to  lay  down  certain  concessions 
which  the  Gentiles  should  in  turn  make.  They  should 
abstain  from  meats  offered  in  sacrifice  unto  idols,  from 
blood,  from  things  strangled,  and  from  fornication ;  all 
of  them  points  upon  which  the  public  opinion  of  the 
Gentiles  laid  no  stress,  but  which  were  most  abhorrent 
to  a  true  Jew.  The  decrees  of  the  Synod  of  Jerusalem, 
as  the  inspired  historian  expressly  terms  them  in 
ch.  xvi.  4,  were  mere  tem-porary  expedients.  They 
determined  indeed  one  important  question,  that  circum- 
cision should  not  be  imposed  on  the  Gentiles — that 
Judaism,  in  fact,  was  not  in  and  by  itself  a  saving 
dispensation ;  but  left  unsolved  many  other  questions, 
even  touching  this  very  subject  of  circumcision  and  the 
Jewish  law,  which  had  afterwards  to  be  debated  and 
threshed  out,  as   St.   Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 


244  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

proves.  But,  turning  our  eyes  from  the  obsolete 
controversy  which  evoked  the  Apostolic  Epistle,  and 
viewing  the  subject  from  a  wider  and  a  modern  stand- 
point, we  may  say  that  the  decrees  of  this  primitive 
Synod  narrated  in  this  typical  history  bestow  their 
sanction  upon  the  great  principles  of  prudence,  wisdom, 
and  growth  in  the  Divine  life  and  in  Church  work.  It 
was  with  the  apostles  themselves  as  with  the  Church 
ever  since.  Apostles  even  must  not  make  haste,  but 
must  be  contented  to  wait  upon  the  developments  of 
God's  providence.  Perfection  is  an  excellent  thing,  but 
then  perfection  cannot  be  attained  at  once.  Here  a 
little  and  there  a  little  is  the  Divine  law  under  the  New 
as  under  the  Old  Dispensation.  Truth  is  the  fairest 
and  most  excellent  of  all  possessions,  but  the  advocates 
of  truth  must  not  expect  it  to  be  grasped  in  all  its 
bearings  by  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  at  one  and 
the  same  time.  They  must  be  content,  as  St.  Paul  was, 
if  one  step  be  taken  at  a  time ;  if  progress  be  in  the 
right  and  not  in  the  wrong  direction  ;  and  must  be 
willing  to  concede  much  to  the  feelings  and  long- 
descended  prejudices  of  short-sighted  human  nature. 


CHAPTER   XL 

APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS  AND    THE  SECOND    TOUR. 

"  And  after  some  days  Paul  said  uiUo  Barnabas,  Let  us  return  now 
and  visit  the  brethren  in  every  city  wherein  we  proclaimed  the  word  of 
the  Lord,  and  see  how  they  fare.  .  .  .  And  there  arose  a  sharp  conten- 
tion between  them,  so  that  they  parted  asunder  one  from  the  other." — 
Acts  xv.  36,  39. 

"  And  they, went  through  the  region  of  Phrygia  and  Galatia,  having 
been  forbidden  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  speak  the  word  in  Asia.  .  .  . 
They  came  down  to  Troas.  And  a  vision  appeared  to  Paul  in  the 
night ;  There  was  a  man  of  Macedonia  standing,  beseeching  him,  and 
saying,  Come  over  into  Macedonia  and  help  us." — Acts  xvi.  6,  8,  9, 

♦:^ 

THE  second  missionary  tour  of  St.  Paul  now  claims 
our  attention,  specially  because  it  involves  the 
first  proclamation  of  Christianity  by  an  apostle  within 
the  boundaries  of  Europe.  The  course  of  the  narrative 
up  to  this  will  show  that  any  Christian  effort  in  Europe 
by  an  apostle,  St.  Peter  or  any  one  else  prior  to  St. 
Paul's  work,  was  almost  impossible.  To  the  Twelve 
and  to  men  like-minded  with  them,  it  must  have  seemed 
a  daring  innovation  to  bring  the  gospel  message  directly 
to  bear  upon  the  masses  of  Gentile  paganism.  Men 
of  conservative  minds  like  the  Twelve  doubtless  re- 
strained their  own  efforts  up  to  the  time  of  St.  Paul's 
second  tour  within  the  bounds  of  Israel  according  to 
the  flesh  in  Palestine  and  the  neighbouring  lands, 
finding  there  an  ample  field  upon  which  to  exercise 
their  diligence.     And  then  when  we  turn  to  St.  Paul 

245 


246  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  St.  Barnabas,  who  had  dared  to  realise  the  freeness 
and  fuhiess  of  the  gospel  message,  we  shall  see  that 
the  Syrian  Antioch  and  Syria  itself  and  Asia  Minor 
had  hitherto  afforded  to  them  scope  quite  sufficient  to 
engage  their  utmost  attention.  A  few  moments'  reflec- 
tion upon  the  circumstances  of  the  primitive  Christian 
Church  and  the  developments  through  which  Apostolic 
Christianity  passed  are  quite  sufficient  to  dispel  all 
such  fabulous  incrustations  upon  the  original  record  as 
those  involved  in  St.  Peter's  episcopate  at  Antioch  or 
his  lengthened  rule  over  the  Church  at  Rome.  If  the 
latter  story  was  to  be  accepted,  St.  Peter  must  have 
been  Bishop  of  Rome  long  before  a  mission  was  de- 
spatched to  the  Gentiles  from  Antioch,  if  not  even 
before  the  vision  was  seen  at  Joppa  by  St.  Peter  when 
the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  to  the  Church  was  first 
authorised  under  any  terms  whatsoever.^  In  fact,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  fit  the  actions  of  St.  Peter  into 
any  scheme  whatsoever,  if  we  bring  him  to  Rome  and 
make  him  bishop  there  for  twenty-five  years  beginning 
at  the  year  42,  the  time  usually  assigned  by  Roman 
Catholic  historians.  It  is  hard  enough  to  frame  a 
hypothetical  scheme,  which  will  find  a  due  and  fitting 
place   for  the   various  recorded  actions  of  St.   Peter, 


1  St.  Jerome  places  the  beginning  of  St.  Peter's  twenty-five  years' 
episcopate  at  Rome  in  A.D.  42 — that  is,  two  years  before  Herod's 
attempt  to  put  St.  Peter  to  death.  This  idea  has  been  worked  up  into 
an  elaborate  story,  which  will  be  found  duly  set  forth  in  great  detail 
in  Fleury's  Ecclesiastical  History,  Book  I.,  where  St,  Peter  is  made 
Bishop  of  Rome  prior  to  the  death  of  Herod  Agrippa,  whence  he 
despatches  disciples  to  found  Churches  in  various  towns  of  Italy,  and 
whence  he  writes  his  first  Epistle  to  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  in  Asia 
Minor.  A  simple  statement  of  this  is  sufficient  refutation  for  any  one 
who  knows  the  bare  text  of  the  Acts.  There  seems,  however,  no  reason 
whatsoever  to  doubt  the  ancient  tradition  which  fixcs  the  martyrdom  of 


XV.  36, 39-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  247 

quite  apart  from  any  supposed  Roman  episcopate 
lasting  over  such  an  extended  period.  St.  Peter  and 
St.  Paul  had,  for  instance,  a  dispute  at  Antioch  of  which 
we  read  much  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Galatian 
Epistle.  Where  shall  we  fix  that  dispute  ?  Some 
place  it  during  the  interval  between  the  Synod  at 
Jerusalem  and  the  second  missionary  tour  of  which 
we  now  propose  to  treat.  Others  place  it  at  the  con- 
clusion of  that  tour,  when  St.  Paul  v/as  resting  at 
Antioch  for  a  little  after  the  work  of  that  second 
journey.  As  we  are  not  writing  the  life  of  St.  Paul, 
but  simply  commenting  upon  the  narratives  of  his 
labours  as  told  in  the  Acts,  we  must  be  content  to  refer 
to  the  Lives  of  St.  Paul  by  Conybeare  and  Howson, 
and  Archdeacon  Farrar,  and  to  Bishop  Lightfoot's 
Galatians,  all  of  whom  place  this  quarrel  before  the 
second  tour,  and  to  Mr.  Findlay's  Galatians  in  our 
own  series,  who  jJi:)holds  the  other  view.  Supposing, 
however,  that  we  take  the  former  view  in  deference  to 
the  weighty  authorities  just  mentioned,  we  then  find 
that  there  were  two  serious  quarrels  which  must  for 
a  time  have  marred  the  unity  and  Christian  concord 
of  the  Antiochene  Church. 

The  reproof  of  St.  Peter  by  St.  Paul  for  his  dissimu- 

St.  Peter  at  Roiiie.  See  on  the  whole  subject  the  interesting  article 
on  St.  Peter  in  Schaffs  Encyclopczdia  of  Theology,  p.  1814.  In  the 
Acta  Sanctorum,  pubUshed  by  the  Bollandists,  April,  vol.  iii.,  p.  346, 
we  are  told  that  St.  Peter  despatched  St.  Mark  to  found  the  Church 
of  Aquileia,  which  claims  the  next  rank  to  the  Church  of  Rome  among 
the  Italian  sees.  In  fact,  the  Bishops  of  Aquileia  regarded  themselves 
as  of  such  impoitance,  owing  to  their  apostolic  origin,  that  they  headed 
a  separation  from  the  Church  of  Rome,  which  lasted  from  about  A.D. 
570  to  700.  See  Robertson's  History  of  the  Church,  ii.,  p.  306,  and  the 
authorities  there  quoted,  on  this  interesting  anticipation  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  England. 


248  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

lation  was  made  on  a  public  occasion  before  the  whole 
Church.  It  must  have  caused  considerable  excitement 
and  discussion,  and  raised  much  human  feeling  in 
Antioch.  Barnabas  too,  the  chosen  friend  and  com- 
panion of  St.  Paul,  was  involved  in  the  matter,  ^nd 
must  have  felt  himself  condemned  in  the  strong  lan- 
guage addressed  to  St.  Peter.  This  may  have  caused 
for  a  time  a  certain  amount  of  estrangement  between 
the  various  parties.  A  close  study  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  dispels  at  once  the  notion  men  would  fain 
cherish,  that  the  apostles  and  the  early  Christians 
lived  just  like  angels  without  any  trace  of  human 
passion  or  discord.  The  apostles  had  their  differences 
and  misunderstandings  very  like  our  own.  Hot  tem- 
pers and  subsequent  coolnesses  arose,  and  produced 
evil  results  between  men  entrusted  with  the  very 
highest  offices,  and  paved  the  way,  as  quarrels  always 
do,  for  fresh  disturbances  at  some  future  time.  So  it 
was  at  Antioch,  where  the  public  reproof  of  St.  Peter 
by  St.  Paul  involved  St.  Barnabas,  and  may  have  left 
traces  upon  the  gentle  soul  of  the  Son  of  Consolation 
which  were  not  wholly  eradicated  by  the  time  that  a 
new  source  of  trouble  arose. 

The  ministry  of  St.  Paul  at  Antioch  was  prolonged 
for  some  time  after  the  Jerusalem  Synod,  and  then  the 
Holy  Ghost  again  impelled  him  to  return  and  visit  all 
the  Churches  which  he  had  founded  in  Cyprus  and 
Asia  Minor.  He  recognised  the  necessity  for  super- 
vision, support,  and  guidance  as  far  as  the  new  converts 
were  concerned.  The  seed  might  be  from  heaven  and 
the  work  might  be  God's  own,  but  still  human  effort 
must  take  its  share  and  do  its  duty,  or  else  the  work 
may  fail  and  the  good  seed  never  attain  perfection. 
St.  Paul  therefore  proposed  to  Barnabas  a  second  joint 


XV.  36, 39-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  249 

mission,  intending  to  visit  "  the  brethren  in  every  city 
wherein  they  had  proclaimed  the  word  of  the  Lord." 
Barnabas  desired  to  take  with  them  his  kinsman  Mark, 
but  Paul,  remembering  his  weakness  and  defection  on 
their  previous  journey,  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  the 
young  man.  Then  there  arose  a  sharp  contention  be- 
tween them,  or,  as  the  original  expression  is,  there  arose 
a  paroxysm  between  the  apostles,  so  that  the  loving 
Christian  workers  and  friends  of  bygone  years,  "  men 
who  had  hazarded  their  lives  for  the  name  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,"  separated  the  one  from  the  other,  and 
worked  from  henceforth  in  widely  different  localities. 

L  There  are  few  portions  of  the  Acts  more  fruitful 
in  spiritual  instruction,  or  teeming  with  more  abundant 
lessons,  or  richer  in  application  to  present  difficulties, 
than  this  very  incident.  Let  us  note  a  few  of  them. 
One  thought,  for  instance,  which  occurs  at  once  to  any 
reflecting  mind  is  this  :  what  an  extraordinary  thing  it 
is  that  two  such  holy  and  devoted  men  as  Paul  and 
Barnabas  should  have  had  a  quarrel  at  all ;  and  when 
they  did  quarrel,  would  it  not  have  been  far  better  to 
have  hushed  the  matter  up  and  never  have  let  the 
world  know  anything  at  all  about  it  ?  Now  I  do  not 
say  that  it  is  well  for  Christian  people  always  to 
proclaim  aloud  and  tell  the  world  at  large  all  about 
the  various  unpleasr.nt  circumstances  of  their  lives, 
their  quarrels,  their  miisunderstandings,  their  personal 
failings  and  backslidings.  Life  would  be  simply  in- 
tolerable did  we  live  always,  at  all  times,  and  under 
all  circumstances  beneath  the  full  glare  of  publicity. 
Personal  quarrels  too,  family  jars  and  bickerings  have  a 
rapid  tendency  to  heal  themselves,  if  kept  in  the  gloom, 
the  soft,  toned,  shaded  light  of  retirement.  They 
have   an  unhappy  tendency  to  harden  and  perpetuate 


250  THE  ACTS  QF  THE  APOSTLES. 

themselves  when  dragged  beneath  the  fierce  Hght  of 
pubHc  opinion  and  the  outside  world.  Yet  it  is  well 
for  the  Church  at  large  that  such  a  record  has  been 
left  for  us  of  the  fact  that  the  quarrel  between  Paul 
and  Barnabas  waxed  so  fierce  that  they  departed  the 
one  from  the  other,  to  teach  us  what  we  are  apt  to 
forget,  the  true  character  of  the  apostles.  Human 
nature  is  intensely  inclined  to  idolatry.  One  idol  may 
be  knocked  down,  but  as  soon  as  it  is  displaced  the 
heart  straightway  sets  to  work  to  erect  another  idol  in 
its  stead,  and  men  have  been  ready  to  make  idols  of 
the  apostles.  They  have  been  ready  to  imagine  them 
supernatural  characters,  tainted  with  no  sin,  tempted 
by  no  passion,  weakened  by  no  infirmity.  If  these 
incidents  had  not  been  recorded — the  quarrel  with 
Peter  and  the  quarrel  with  Barnabas — we  should  have 
been  apt  to  forget  that  the  apostles  were  men  of  like 
passions  with  ourselves,  and  thus  to  lose  the  full  force 
— the  bracing,  stimulating  force — of  such  exhortations 
as  that  delivered  by  St.  Paul  when  he  said  to  a 
primitive  Church,  "  Follow  me,  as  I,  a  poor,  weak, 
failing,  passionate  man,  have  followed  Christ."  We 
have  the  thorough  humanity  of  the  apostles  vigorously 
presented  and  enforced  in  this  passage.  There  is  no 
suppression  of  weak  points,  no  accentuation  of  strong 
points,  no  hiding  of  defects  and  weaknesses,  no  dwell- 
ing upon  virtues  and  graces.  We  have  the  apostles 
presented  at  times  vigorous,  united,  harmonious  ;  at 
other  times  weak,  timorous,  and  cowardly. 

Again,  we  note  that  this  passage  not  only  shows  us 
the  human  frailties  and  weaknesses  which  marked  the 
apostles,  and  found  a  place  in  characters  and  persons 
called  to  the  very  highest  places ;  it  has  also  a  lesson 
for  the  Church  of  all  time  in  the  circumstances  which 


XV.  36, 39-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  251 

led  to  the  quarrel  between  Paul  and  Barnabas.  We 
do  well  to  mark  carefully  that  Antioch  saw  two  such 
quarrels,  the  one  of  which,  as  we  have  already  pointed 
out,  may  have  had  something  to  say  to  the  other. 
The  quarrel  between  St.  Paul  and  St,  Peter  indeed 
has  a  history  which  strikingly  illustrates  this  tendency 
of  which  we  have  just  now  spoken.  Some  expositors, 
jealous  of  the  good  fame  and  reputation  and  temper 
of  the  apostles,  have  explained  the  quarrel  at  Antioch 
between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter  as  not  having  been  a 
real  quarrel  at  all,  but  an  edifying  piece  of  acting,  a 
dispute  got  up  between  the  apostles  to  enforce  and 
proclaim  the  freedom  of  the  Gentiles,  a  mere  piece  of 
knavery  and  deception  utterly  foreign  to  such  a  truth- 
loving  character  as  was  St.  Paul's.^  It  is  interesting, 
however,  to  note  as  manifesting  their  natural  charac- 
teristics, which  were  not  destroyed,  but  merely  elevated, 
purified,  and  sanctified  by  Divine  grace,  that  the  apostles 
Paul  and  Barnabas  quarrelled  about  a  purely  personal 
matter.  They  had  finished  their  first  missionary  tour 
on  which  they  had  been  accompanied  by  St.  Mark,  who 

'  "  Origen  started  this  theory  that  the  dispute  between  Peter  and  Paul 
was  simulated  ;  in  other  words,  being  of  one  mind  in  the  matter  they 
got  up  this  scene  that  St.  Paul  might  the  more  effectually  condemn  the 
Judaisers  through  the  chief  of  the  apostles,  who,  acknowledging  the 
justice  of  the  rebuke,  set  them  an  example  of  submission.  Thus  he, 
in  fact,  substituted  the  much  graver  charge  of  dishonesty  against  both 
apostles  in  order  to  exculpate  the  one  from  the  comparatively  venial 
offence  of  moral  cowardice  and  inconsistency.  Nevertheless  this  view 
commended  itself  to  a  large  number  of  subsequent  writers,  and  for  some 
time  may  be  said  to  have  reigned  supreme."  (Lightfoot's  Galaiians, 
p.  129.)  St.  Chrysostom  and  St.  Jei'ome  maintained  the  same  view, 
while  St.  Augustine  opposed  it.  The  epistles  exchanged  between 
Jerome  and  Augustine  on  this  topic  are  very  interesting.  They  may 
be  most  easily  perused  in  Augustine's  Epistles,  vol.  i.,  pp.  131  and  280, 
as  translated  in  T.  &  T.  Clark's  series  (Edinburgh,  1872). 


252  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


had  acted  as  their  attendant  or  servant,  carrying,  we 
may  suppose,  their  higgage,  and  discharging  all  the 
subordinate  offices  such  service  might  involve.  The 
labour  and  toil  and  personal  danger  incident  to  such 
a  career  were  too  much  for  the  young  man.  So  with 
all  the  fickleness,  the  weakness,  the  want  of  strong 
definite  purpose  we  often  find  in  young  people,  he 
abandoned  his  work  simply  because  it  involved  the 
exercise  of  a  certain  amount  of  self-sacrifice.  And  now, 
when  Paul  and  Barnabas  are  setting  out  again,  and 
Barnabas  wishes  to  take  the  same  favourite  relative 
with  them,^  St.  Paul  naturally  objects,  and  then  the 
bitter  passionate  quarrel  ensues.  St.  Paul  just  experi- 
enced here  what  we  all  must  more  or  less  experience, 
the  crosses  and  trials  of  public  life,  if  we  wish  to 
pass  through  that  life  with  a  good  conscience.  Public 
life,  I  say- — and  I  mean  thereby  not  political  life,  which 
alone  we  usually  dignify  by  that  name,  but  the  ordinary 
life  which  every  man  and  every  woman  amongst  us 
must  live  as  we  go  in  and  out  and  discharge  our  duties 
amid  our  fellow-men, — public  life,  the  life  we  live  once 
we  leave  our  closet  communion  with  God  in  the  early 
morning  till  we  return  thereto  in  the  eventide,  is  in  all 
its  departments  most  trying.  It  is  trying  to  temper, 
and  it  is  trying  to  principle,  and  no  one  can  hope  to  pass 
through  it  without  serious  and  grievous  temptations. 
I  do  not  wonder  that  men  have  often  felt,  as  the  old 
Eastern  monks  did,  that  salvation  was  more  easily  won 

'  Mark  is  usually  regarded  as  nephew  to  Barnabas.  This  opinion  is 
grounded  upon  Col.  iv.  lo,  as  translated  in  the  Authorised  Version. 
They  were,  however,  cousins  merely.  The  Revised  Version  translates 
Col.  iv.  lO  thus  :  "  Mark,  the  cousin  of  Barnabas."  Dr.  Lightfoot,  in 
his  Colossians,  p.  236,  has  a  long  note  showing  that  the  word  used 
about  St.  Mark  in  that  passage  is  6  dvei/'iiy,  which  alw.ays  means  cousin 
german :  see  Thayer's  edition  of  Grimm's  Lexicon  of  New  Testatnent,  s.x>, 


XV.  36, 39-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  25^ 


in  solitude  than  in  living  and  working  amid  the  busy 
haunts  of  men  where  bad  temper  and  hot  words  so 
often  conspire  to  make  one  return  home  from  a  hard 
day's  work  feeling  miserable  within  on  account  of 
repeated  falls  and  shortcomings.  Shall  we  then  act  as 
they  did  ?  Shall  we  shut  out  the  world  completely 
and  cease  to  take  any  part  in  a  struggle  which  seems 
to  tell  so  disastrously  upon  the  equable  calm  of  our 
spiritual  life  ?  Nay  indeed,  for  such  a  course  would 
be  unworthy  a  soldier  of  the  Cross,  and  very  unlike  the 
example  shown  by  the  blessed  apostle  St.  Paul,  who 
had  to  battle  not  only  against  others,  but  had  also  to 
battle  against  himself  and  his  own  passionate  nature, 
and  was  crowned  as  a  victor,  not  because  he  ran  away, 
but  because  he  conquered  through  the  grace  of  Christ. 

And  now  it  is  well  that  we  should  note  the  special 
trials  he  had  to  endure.  He  had  to  fight  against  the 
spirit  of  cowardly  self-indulgence  in  others,  and  he  had 
to  fight  against  the  spirit  of  jobbery.  These  things 
indeed  caused  the  rupture  in  the  apostolic  friendship. 
St.  Barnabas,  apostle  though  he  was,  thought  far  more 
of  the  interests  of  his  cousin  than  of  the  interests  of 
Christ's  mission.  St.  Paul  with  his  devotion  to  Christ 
may  have  been  a  little  intolerant  of  the  weakness  of 
youth,  but  he  rightly  judged  that  one  who  had  proved 
untrustworthy  before  should  not  be  rapidly  and  at  once 
trusted  again.  And  St.  Paul  was  thoroughly  right,  and 
has  left  a  very  useful  and  practical  example.  Many 
young  men  among  us  are  hke  St.  Mark.  The  St.  Marks 
of  our  own  day  are  a  very  numerous  class.  They  have 
no  respect  for  their  engagements.  They  will  undertake 
work  and  allow  themselves  to  be  calculated  upon,  and 
arrangements  to  be  made  accordingly.  But  then  comes 
the  stress  of  action,  and  their  place  is  found  wanting,. 


254  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


and  the  work  undertaken  by  them  is  found  undone. 
And  then  they  wonder  and  complain  that  their  lives  are 
unsuccessful,  and  that  men  and  women  who  are  in 
earnest  will  not  trust  or  employ  them  in  the  future ! 
These  are  the  men  who  are  the  social  wrecks  in  life. 
They  proclaim  loudly  in  streets  and  highways  the  hard 
treatment  which  they  have  received.  They  tell  forth 
their  own  misery,  and  speak  as  if  they  were  the  most 
deserving  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  ill-treated  of 
men  ;  and  yet  they  are  but  reaping  as  they  have  sown, 
and  their  failures  and  their  misfortunes  are  only  the 
due  and  fitting  rewards  of  their  want  of  earnestness, 
diligence,  and  self-denial.  To  the  young  this  episode 
proclaims  aloud  :  Respect  your  engagements,  regard 
public  employments  as  solemn  contracts  in  God's  sight. 
Take  pains  with  your  work.  Be  willing  to  endure  any 
trouble  for  its  sake.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  genius 
in  ordinary  life.  Genius  has  been  well  defined  as  an 
infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains.  And  thus  avoid  the 
miserable  weakness  of  St.  Mark,  who  fled  from  his 
work  because  it  entailed  trouble  and  self-denial  on  his 
part. 

Then,  again,  we  view  St.  Paul  with  admiration 
because  he  withstood  the  spirit  of  jobbery  when  it 
displayed  itself  even  in  a  saint.  Barnabas  in  plain 
language  wished  to  perpetrate  a  job  in  favour  of  a 
member  of  his  family,  and  St.  Paul  withstood  him. 
And  how  often  since  has  the  same  spirit  thus  displayed 
itself  to  the  injury  of  God's  cause !  Let  us  note  how 
the  case  stood.  St.  Barnabas  was  a  good  pious  man 
of  very  strong  emotional  feelings.  But  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  guided,  as  pious  people  often  do,  by 
their  emotions,  affections,  prejudices,  not  by  their 
reason   and  judgment.     With    such   men   when  their 


XV.  36, 39-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  255 

affections  come  into  play  jobbery  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world.     It  is  the    very    breath    of  their 
nostrils.     It  is  the  atmosphere   in  which   they  revel. 
Barnabas   loved   his  cousin   John   Mark,  with  strong, 
powerful,    absorbing    love,    and   that    emotion   blinded 
Barnabas  to  Mark's  faults,  and  led  him  on  his  behalf 
to  quarrel  with  his  firmer,  wiser,  and  more  vigorous 
friend.     Jobbery  is  a  vice    peculiar  to  no  age  and  to 
no  profession.     It  flourishes  in  the  most  rehgious  as 
in  the    most  worldly    circles.     In    religious    circles    it 
often  takes  the  most  sickening  forms,  when  miserable, 
narrow  selfishness   assumes  the  garb  and  adopts  the 
language  of  Christian  piety.    St.  Paul's  action  proclaims 
to  Christian  men  a  very    needful  lesson.     It  says,  in 
fact,    Set   your   faces   against  jobbery  of  every  kind. 
Regard  power,  influence,  pationage  as  a  sacred  trust. 
Permit  not  fear,  affection,  or  party  spirit  to  blind  your 
eyes  or  prejudice  your  judgment  against  real  merit ; 
so  shall  you  be  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the  great 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  with  his  heroic  championship 
of  that  which  was  righteous  and  true,  and  of  One  higher 
still,  for  thus  you  shall  be  following  the  Master's  own 
example,  whose  highest  praise  was  this  :  "  He  loved 
righteousness,  and  hated  iniquity."^ 

'  The  sequel  of  this  story  as  made  known  through  the  Epistles  is 
most  interesting.  The  quarrel  between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Barnabas 
was  not  a  permanent  one.  Five  years  or  so  later,  when  writing  the 
1st  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (ix.  6),  St.  Paul  associates  himself  with 
Barnabas  as  if  they  were  companions  once  again :  "  Or  I  only,  and 
Barnabas,  have  we  not  a  right  to  forbear  working?"  It  is  interesting 
too  to  trace  the  change  that  came  in  subsequent  years  over  the  relations 
between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Mark  as  revealed  by  the  Epistles.  About 
the  year  50  St.  Paul  treated  Mark  sternly,  and  that  same  sternness 
was  most  beneficial  to  the  young  man.  It  was  just  what  his  character 
wanted.  Fifteen  years  passed  over  both  their  heads,  and  the  scene 
was   then  very  different.     In   Col.   iv.  10,    11    Mark   is   commended 


2S6  THE   ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

We  have  now  bestowed  a  lengthened  notice  upon 
this  quarrel,  because  it  corrects  a  very  mistaken  notion 
about  the  apostles,  and  shows  us  how  thoroughly 
natural  and  human,  how  very  like  our  own,  was  the 
everyday  life  of  the  primitive  Church.  It  takes  away 
the  false  halo  of  infallibihty  and  impeccability  with 
which  we  are  apt  to  invest  the  apostles,  making  us 
view  them  as  real,  fallible,  weak,  sinful  men  like  our- 
selves,^ and  thereby  exalts    the  power  of  that  grace 


unto  the  Church  of  Colossce  as  one  of  the  few  Jewish  Christians  who 
had  been  a  comfort  in  his  bonds  to  the  prisoner  of  Jesus  Christ ;  while 
again,  when  on  the  point  of  his  departure,  in  the  2nd  Epistle  to 
Timothy,  iv.  II,  the  once  weak  disciple  is  most  touchingly  and  lovingly 
remembered  :  ' '  Only  Luke  is  with  me.  Take  Mark,  and  bring  him 
with  thee  :  for  he  is  useful  to  me  for  ministering."  St.  Mark,  after 
being  the  cause  of  this  quarrel,  appears  no  more  in  the  Acts.  The 
traditions  about  him  will  be  found  collected  in  English  in  Nelson's 
Fasts  and  Festivals,  under  his  Feast  Day,  April  25th  ;  or  better  still  in 
Cz.wq'?,  Lives  of  the  Apostles,  pp.  217-23  (London,  1684);  and  in  Latin 
in  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  Ed.  Boll.,  April,  iii.,  344-58.  Cave  and  the 
Bollandists  give  all  the  traditions  about  his  foundation  of  the  Church 
of  Alexandria,  the  patriarchs  of  which  still  claim  descent  from  him. 
Some  historical  writers  have  maintained,  that  they  used  to  be  ordained 
by  the  imposition  of  St.  Mark's  dead  hand.  This  seems  a  mistake, 
however.  Mr.  Butler,  in  his  Coptic  Churches  of  Egypt,  vol.  ii.,  p.  311, 
says  that  the  newly  ordained  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  used  to  hold 
St.  Mark's  head  in  his  hands  during  the  celebration  of  Mass  after 
his  consecration.  (See  also  Coptic  Church  in  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.). 
Renaudot,  a  learned  French  writer,  published  a  history  of  the  Alexan- 
drian Patriarchate  in  1713,  which  industriously  collects  all  the  details 
of  St.  Mark's  life  true  and  imaginary  alike.  St.  Mark's  supposed  body 
was  carried  to  Venice  from  Alexandria  about  a.d.  1235. 

'  It  is  curious  to  note  how  widespread  is  this  notion  that  the  apostles 
always  possessed  supernatural  powers  in  virtue  of  their  office,  enabling 
them,  for  instance,  infallibly  to  read  men's  hearts  and  thoughts.  In  a 
letter  in  the  Church  Times  for  August  19th,  1892,  from  an  eminent 
dignitary  of  the  Church  of  England,  I  noticed  an  example  of  it.  He 
was  discussing  a  question  with  which  I  have  nothing  to  say,  and  in  domg 
so  writes :  "  The  commission  given  by  our  Lord  to  the  apostles  cannot 


xvi.6,8,9.]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  257 

which  made  them  so  eminent  in  Christian  character, 
so  abundant  in  Christian  labours.  Let  us  now  apply 
ourselves  to  trace  the  course  of  St.  Paul's  second 
tour. 

The  effect  of  the  quarrel  between  the  friends  was 
that  St.  Paul  took  Silas  and  St.  Barnabas  took  Mark,  and 
they  separated ;  the  latter  going  to  Cyprus,  the  native 
country  of  Barnabas,  while  Paul  and  Silas  devoted 
themselves  to  Syria  and  Asia  Minor  and  their  Churches. 
The  division  between  these  holy  men  became  thus 
doubly  profitable  to  the  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  per- 
petually profitable,  by  way  of  warning  and  example, 
as  we  have  just  now  shown ;  and  then  it  became  profit- 
able because  it  led  to  two  distinct  missions  being  carried 
on,  the  one  in  the  island  of  Cyprus,  the  other  on  the 
continent  of  Asia.  The  wrath  of  man  is  thus  again 
overruled  to  the  greater  glory  of  God,  and  human 
weakness  is  made  to  promote  the  interests  of  the 
gospel.  We  read,  too,  "  they  parted  asunder  the  one 
from  the  other."  How  very  differently  they  acted 
from  the  manner  in  which  modern  Christians  do ! 
Their  difference  in  opinion  did  not  lead  them  to  depart 
into  exactly  the  same  district,  and  there  pursue  a  policy 
of  opposition  the  one  against  the  other.     They  sought 

be  used  in  precisely  the  same  sense  by  ourselves.  The  apostles'  powers 
were  miraculous.  .  .  .  They  could  tell  whether  the  condition  of  the 
soul  of  the  recipient  of  their  gifts  was  right  or  the  reverse  in  a  manner 
not  possible  for  us.  .  .  .  They  could  perceive  and  gauge  faith  in  a  way 
that  is  not  our  prerogative.  ...  It  is  clear  that  the  apostles  could  have 
perceived  whether  repentance  and  faith  were  genuine."  I  do  not  deny 
that  God  sometimes  made  such  special  revelations  to  them.  But  quA 
apostles  they  had  no  such  gift  of  discerning  spirits,  else  why  did  Peter 
baptize  Simon  Magus,  or  St  Paul  and  Barnabas  take  Mark  with  them 
at  all,  or  St.  Paul  tolerate  Demas  even  for  a  moment,  or  wh)'  did  he  not 
indicate  the  "  grievous  wolves  "  who  should  ravage  the  Ephesian  Church 
after  his  departure  ? 

VOL.  II.  17 


258  THE  ACTS   OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

rather  districts  widely  separated,  where  their  social 
differences  could  have  no  effect  upon  the  cause  they 
both  loved.  How  very  differently  modern  Christians 
act,  and  how  very  disastrous  the  consequent  results  ! 
How  very  scandalous,  how  very  injurious  to  Christ's 
cause,  when  Christian  missionaries  of  different  com- 
munions appear  warring  one  with  another  in  face  of 
the  pagan  world  !  Surely  the  world  of  paganism  is  wide 
enough  and  large  enough  to  afford  scope  for  the  utmost 
efforts  of  all  Christians  without  European  Christendom 
exporting  its  divisions  and  quarrels  to  afford  matter 
for  mockery  to  scoffing  idolaters !  We  have  heard 
lately  a  great  deal  about  the  differences  between 
Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries  in  Central 
Africa,  terminating  in  war  and  bloodshed  and  in  the 
most  miserable  recriminations  threatening  the  peace  and 
welfare  of  the  nations  of  Europe.  Surely  there  must 
have  been  an  error  of  judgment  somewhere  or  another 
in  this  case,  and  Africa  must  be  ample  enough  to 
afford  abundant  room  for  the  independent  action  of  the 
largest  bodies  of  missionaries  without  resorting  to 
armed  conflicts  which  recall  the  religious  wars  be- 
tween the  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  Cantons  of 
Switzerland  !  With  the  subsequent  labours  of  Barnabas 
we  have  nothing  to  do,  as  he  now  disappears  from 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,^  though  it  would  appear  from 
a  reference  by  St.  Paul — i  Cor.  ix.  6,  "Or  I  only,  and 

'  Ecclesiastical  history  and  tradition  tell  us  more  about  Barnabas  and 
Cyprus.  They  represent  Barnabas  as  the  Apostle  of  the  Church  of 
Cyprus.  This  idea  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  fifth  century.  The 
ancient  connection  between  Antioch  and  Cyprus  was  then  kept  up, 
and  the  patriarchs  of  Antioch  wished  to  subject  the  Archbishop  and 
Bishops  of  Cyprus  to  their  rule.  The  Seventh  Session  of  the  Great 
Council  of  Ephesus,  which  dealt  with  the  Nestorian  controversy,  was 


xvi.6, 8, 9-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  259 

Barnabas,  have  we  not  a  right  to  forbear  working  ?  " — 
as  if  at  that  time  four  or  five  years  after  the  quarrel 
they  were  again  labouring  together  at  Ephesus,  where 
First  Corinthians  was  written,  or  else  why  should 
Barnabas  be  mentioned  in  that  connexion  at  all  ? 

Let  us  now  briefly  indicate  the  course  of  St.  Paul's 
labours  during  the  next  three  years,  as  his  second 
missionary  tour  must  have  extended  over  at  least  that 
space  of  time.  St.  Paul  and  his  companion  Silas 
left  Antioch  amid  the  prayers  of  the  whole  Church 
Evidently  the  brethren  viewed  Paul's  conduct  with  ap- 
probation, and  accompanied  him  therefore  with  fervent 
supplications  for  success  in  his  self-denying  labours. 
He  proceeded  by  land  into  Cilicia  and  Asia  Minor, 
and  wherever  he  went  he  delivered  the  apostolic  decree 
in  order  that  he  might  counteract  the  workings  of  the 
Judaisers.  This  decree  served  a  twofold  purpose.  It 
relieved  the  minds  of  the  Gentile  brethren  with  respect 

engaged  with  this  question  of  Cyprus.  The  session  was  held  on  July 
31st,  431.  The  Cypriote  bishops  claimed  that  they  had  been  free  from 
the  dominion  of  Antioch  back  to  apostolic  times,  and  the  Council  con- 
firmed their  freedom  :  see  Mansi's  Councils,  iv.,  1465 — 1470;  Hefele's 
Councils  (T.  &  T.  Clark's  translation),  vol.  ii.,  p.  72.  Forty  years 
later  the  same  claim  was  advanced  by  the  celebrated  Peter  the  Fuller, 
Patriarch  of  Antioch,  and  resisted  by  Anthemius,  Bishop  of  Salamis  or 
Constantia.  The  bishops  of  Cyprus  were  again  successful,  owing  to  the 
timely  discovery  of  the  body  of  Barnabas  lying  in  a  tomb  with  a  copy 
of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  upon  his  heart,  which,  according  to  the 
opinion  of  the  times,  settled  the  point  in  dispute  :  see  Anthemius  in 
the  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  vol.  i.,  p.  118.  Cave,  in  his  Apostolici,  01-  Lives 
of  the  Fathers,  pp.  33-43,  diligently  collects  every  scrap  of  information 
about  St.  Barnabas.  An  early  tradition  found  in  the  Clementine  Recog- 
nitions, lib.  i.,  cap.  7,  and  dating  from  about  a.d.  200,  makes  him  the 
first  apostle  to  preach  in  Rome,  preceding  St.  Peter  himself,  against 
which  theoiy  as  trenching  on  St.  Peter's  prerogatives  Cardinal  Baronius 
disputes  very  vigorously  in  his  Annals,  A.D.  51,  lii.-liv. ;  see  also  Dr. 
Salmon  on  Clementine  Literature  in  the  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  i.,  568. 


26o  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  the  law  and  its  observances,  and  it  also  showed  to 
them  that  the  Jerusalem  Church  and  apostles  recognised 
the  Divine  authority  and  apostolate  of  St.  Paul  himself, 
which  these  "  false  brethren"  from  Jerusalem  had  already 
assailed,  as  they  did  four  or  five  years  later  both  in 
Galatia  and  at  Corinth.  We  know  not  what  special 
towns  St.  Paul  visited  in  Cilicia,  but  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  Church  of  Tarsus,  his  native  place,  where  in 
the  first  fervour  of  his  conversion  he  had  already 
laboured  for  a  considerable  period,  must  have  received 
a  visit  from  him.  We  may  be  certain  that  his  opponents 
would  not  leave  such  an  important  town  unvisited, 
and  we  may  be  equally  certain  that  St.  Paul,  who, 
as  his  Epistles  show,  was  always  keenly  alive  to  the 
opinion  of  his  converts  with  respect  to  his  apostolic 
authority,  would  have  been  specially  anxious  to  let 
his  fellow  townsmen  at  Tarsus  see  that  he  was  no 
unauthorised  or  false  teacher,  but  that  the  Jerusalem 
Church  recognised  his  work  and  teaching  in  the 
amplest  manner. 

Starting  then  anew  from  Tarsus,  Paul  and  Silas  set 
out  upon  an  enormous  journey,  penetrating,  as  few 
modern  travellers  even  now  do,  from  the  south-eastern 
extremity  of  Asia  Minor  to  the  north-western  coast,  a 
journey  which,  with  its  necessarily  prolonged  delays, 
must  have  taken  them  at  least  a  year  and  a  half.  St. 
Paul  seems  to  have  carefully  availed  himself  of  the 
Roman  road  system.  We  are  merely  given  the  very 
barest  outline  of  the  course  which  he  pursued,  but  then 
when  we  take  up  the  index  maps  of  Asia  Minor  inserted 
in  Ramsay's  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  show- 
ing the  road  systems  at  various  periods,  we  see  that  a 
great  Roman  road  followed  the  very  route  which  St. 
Paul  took.    It  started  from  Tarsus  and  passed  to  Derbe, 


xvi.6, 8, 9.]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  261 

whence  of  course  the  road  to  Lystra,  Iconium,  and 
Antioch  had  already  been  traversed  by  St.  Paul.^  He 
must  have  made  lengthened  visits  to  all  these  places, 
as  he  had  much  to  do  and  much  to  teach.  He  had  to 
expound  the  decree  of  the  Apostolic  Council,  to  explain 
Christian  truth,  to  correct  the  errors  and  abuses  which 
were  daily  creeping  in,  and  to  enlarge  the  organisation 
of  the  Christian  Church  by  fresh  ordinations.  Take  the 
case  of  Timothy  as  an  example  of  the  trouble  St.  Paul 
must  have  experienced.  He  came  to  Derbe,  where  he 
first  found  some  of  the  converts  made  on  his  earlier 
tour ;  whence  he  passed  to  Lystra,  where  he  met 
Timothy,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  doubtless  made 
on  his  first  journey.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Jewess, 
though  his  father  was  a  Gentile.  St.  Paul  took  and 
circumcised  him  to  conciliate  ihe  Jews.  The  Apostle 
must  have  bestowed  a  great  deal  of  trouble  on  this 
point  alone,  explaining  to  the  Gentile  portion  of  the 
Christian  community  the  principles  on  which  he  acted 
and  their  perfect  consistency  v;ith  his  own  conduct 
at  Jerusalem  and  his  advocacy  of  Gentile  freedom  from 
the  law.  Then  he  ordained  him.  This  we  do  not 
learn  from  the  Acts,  but  from  St.  Paul's  Epistles  to 
Timothy.  The  Acts  simply  says  of  Timothy,  "  Him 
would  Paul  have  to  go  forth  with  him."  But  then 
when  we  turn  to  the  Epistles  written  to  Timothy,  we 
find  that  it   was  not  as   an  ordinary  companion  that 

'  The  record  of  a  very  similar  journey  performed  five  years  ago  in 
July  1887  may  be  read  in  ihe  Journal  0/  Hellenic  Studies  for  April 
1890.  Mr.  D.  G.  Hogarth,  who  writes  the  story,  travelled  on  that  occasion 
from  the  borders  of  Galatia  to  the  Cilician  coast.  His  narrative  gives 
a  vivid  picture  of  the  scenery  over  the  Taurus  Range  as  St.  Paul  must 
have  seen  it  on  this  second  missionary  tour,  and  of  the  difficulties  by 
which  he  must  have  been  surrounded.  Cf.  Ramsay's  Historical  Geography 
0/  Asia  Minor,  p.  362. 


262  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Timothy  was  taken.  He  went  forth  as  St.  Paul  himself 
had  gone  forth  from  the  Church  of  Antioch,  a  duly 
ordained  and  publicly  recognised  messenger  of  Christ. 
We  can  glean  from  St.  Paul's  letters  to  Timothy  the 
order  and  ceremonies  of  this  primitive  ordination.  The 
rite,  as  ministered  on  that  occasion,  embraced  prophesy- 
ings  or  preachings  by  St.  Paul  himself  and  by  others 
upon  the  serious  character  of  the  office  then  undertaken. 
This  seems  plainly  intimated  in  i  Tim.  i.  i8:  "This 
charge  I  commit  unto  thee,  my  child  Timothy,  accord- 
ing to  the  prophecies  which  went  before  on  thee  "  ; 
while  there  seems  a  reference  to  his  own  exhortations 
and  directions  in  2  Tim.  ii.  2,  where  he  writes,  "  The 
things  which  thou  hast  heard  from  me  among  many 
witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faithful  men." 
After  this  there  was  probably,  as  in.  modern  ordinations, 
a  searching  examination  of  the  candidate,  with  a  solemn 
profession  of  faith  on  his  part,  to  which  St.  Paul  refers 
in  I  Tim.  vi.  I2,  "  Fight  the  good  fight  of  faith,  lay 
hold  on  the  life  eternal,  whereunto  thou  wast  called, 
and  didst  confess  the  good  confession  in  the  sight  of  many 
witnesses.  I  charge  thee  in  the  sight  of  God  who 
quickeneth  all  things,  and  of  Christ  Jesus,  who  before 
Pontius  Pilate  witnessed  the  good  confession  ;  that  thou 
keep  the  commandment,  without  spot,  without  reproach, 
until  the  appearing  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  And 
finally  there  came  the  imposition  of  hands,  in  which  the 
local  presbyters  assisted  St.  Paul,  though  St.  Paul  was 
so  far  the  guiding  and  ruling  personage  that,  though  in 
one  place  (i  Tim.  iv.  1 4)  he  speaks  of  the  gift  of  God 
which  Timothy  possessed,  as  given  "  by  prophecy  with 
the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the  presbytery,"  in 
another  place  he  describes  it  as  given  to  the  young 
evangelist  by  the  imposition  of  St.  Paul's  own  hands 


xvi.6, 8, 9-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  263 


(2  Tim.  i.  6).  This  ordination  of  Timothy^  and 
adoption  of  him  as  his  special  attendant  stood  at  the 
very  beginning  of  a  prolonged  tour  throughout  the 
central  and  northern  districts  of  Asia  Minor,  of  which 
we  get  only  a  mere  hint  in  Acts  xvi.  6-8  :  "  They  went 
through  the  region  of  Phrygia  and  Galatia,  having  been 
forbidden  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  speak  the  word  in 
Asia  ;  and  when  they  were  come  over  against  Mysia, 
they  assayed  to  go  into  Bithynia ;  and  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus  suffered  them  not ;  and  passing  by  Mysia, 
they  came  unto  Troas."  This  is  the  brief  sketch  of 
St,  Paul's  labours  through  the  north-western  provinces 
of  Asia  Minor,  during  which  he  visited  the  district 
of  Galatia  and  preached  the  gospel  amid  the  various 
tribal  communities  of  Celts  who  inhabited  that  district. 
St.  Paul's  work  in  Galatia  is  specially  interesting  to 
ourselves.  The  Celtic  race  certainly  furnished  the 
groundwork  of  the  population  in  England,  Ireland,  and 
Scotland,  and  finds  to  this  day  lineal  representatives 
in  the  Celtic-speaking  inhabitants  of  these  three  islands. 
Galatia  was  thoroughly  Celtic  in  St.  Paul's  day.  But 
how,  it  may  be  said,  did  the  Gauls  come  there  ?  We 
all  know  of  the  Gauls  or  Celts  in  Western  Europe, 
and    every   person   of  even   moderate   education   has 

'  Cave  has  a  long  account  of  Timothy  in  his  Apostolici,  or  Lives  of  the 
Fathers,  pp.  45-53,  where  he  gives  an  account  of  Timothy's  martyrdom 
at  Ephesus  from  Photiu...  the  celebrated  Greek  scholar  and  patriarch  of 
the  ninth  century  :  see  Photius,  Bibliotheca.  cod.  254,  and  the  Acta  Sanc- 
torum for  January,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  562-69.  Timothy  is  said  in  the  Martyr- 
ologies  to  have  been  buried  on  Mount  Prion,  a  hill  upon  the  side  of  which 
ancient  Ephesus  was  built  (see  Wood's  Ephesus,  chap,  i.),  after  he  was 
cruelly  put  to  death  by  the  Ephesians  enraged  at  his  protest  against  one 
of  their  popular  feasts.  He  suffered  under  Domitian  about  thirty  years 
after  St.  Paul,  and  according  to  Photius  was  succeeded  at  Ephesus  by 
St.  John,  who  had  been  recalled  from  exile.  His  feast-day  in  the 
Calendar  is  January  24th. 


264  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

heard  of  the  Gauls  who  invaded  Italy  and  sacked 
Rome  when  that  city  was  yet  an  unknown  factor  in 
the  world's  history,  and  yet  but  very  few  know  that 
the  same  wave  of  invasion  which  brought  the  Gauls 
to  Rome  led  another  division  of  them  into  Asia  Minor, 
where — as  Dr,  Lightfoot  shows  in  his  Introduction  to 
his  Commentary — about  three  hundred  years  before 
St.  Paul's  day  they  settled  down  in  the  region  called 
after  them  Galatia,  perpetuating  in  that  neighbourhood 
the  tribal  organisation,  the  language,^  the  national 
feelings,  habits,  and  customs  which  have  universally 
marked  the  Celtic  race  whether  in  ancient  or  in  modern 
times,  St.  Paul  on  this  second  missionary  tour  paid 
his  first  visit  to  this  district  of  Galatia.  St.  Paul  usually 
directed  his  attention  to  great  cities.  Where  vast 
masses  of  humanity  were  gathered  together,  there 
St.  Paul  loved  to  fling  himself  with  all  the  mighty  force 
of  his   unquenchable   enthusiasm.      But   Galatia   was 

'  The  provinces  of  Asia  Minor  all  retained  their  ancient  languages  at 
the  time  of  St.  Paul.  Latin  and  Greek  were  the  language  of  society, 
but  tha  mass  of  the  people  all  spoke  the  original  language  of  the 
country.  In  the  time  of  St.  Jerome,  four  centuries  after  St.  Paul, 
Celtic  was  still  spoken  in  Galatia  as  well  as  in  Gaul.  St.  Paul  must 
then  have  heard  a  language  identical  with  that  of  Wales  and  the 
western  districts  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  as  is  shown  by  Bishop  Light- 
foot  in  his  Galatians,  pp.  240-44,  by  his  analysis  of  the  remains  of  the 
Galatian  language  which  ancient  writers  have  handed  down  to  us. 
Texier,  a  modern  French  traveller,  thought  that  he  could  even  trace 
Celtic  features  in  the  present  inhabitants  of  the  district.  Cf.  Lightfoot's 
Galatians,  p.  12.  It  is  very  probable  that  a  careful  study  of  the  existing 
language  of  Galatia,  when  treated  according  to  the  methods  of  modern 
scientific  philology,  would  disclose  Celtic  elements.  When  Celtic 
elements  survived  in  England  and  France,  it  is  not  likely  they  died  out 
in  Galatia.  We  know  at  any  rate  that  the  other  original  languages  of 
Asia  Minor  have  not  perished  without  leaving  some  traces  behind. 
There  is  a  learned  Review  published  at  Smyrna  from  time  to  time.  It 
is  called  the  Museuf/i  of  the  Evangelical  School  of  Smyrna.     In  the 


xvi.6, 8,9-]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  265 

quite  unlike  other  districts  with  which  he  had  dealt 
in  this  special  respect.  Like  the  Celtic  race  all  the 
world  over,  the  Gauls  of  Galatia  specially  delighted  in 
village  communities.  They  did  not  care  for  the  society 
and  tone  of  great  towns,  and  Galatia  was  wanting  in 
such.  St.  Paul,  too,  does  not  seem  originally  to  have 
intended  to  labour  amongst  the  Galatians  at  all.  In 
view  of  his  great  design  to  preach  in  large  cities,  and 
concentrate  his  efforts  where  they  could  most  effectually 
tell  upon  the  masses,  he  seems  to  have  been  hurrying 
through  Galatia  when  God  laid  His  heav}"  hand  upon 
the  Apostle  and  delayed  his  course  that  we  might  be 
able  to  see  how  the  gospel  could  tell  upon  Gauls  and 
Celts  even  as  upon  other  nations.  This  interesting 
circumstance  is  made  known  to  us  by  St.  Paul  himself 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, iv.  13  :  "Ye  know  that 
because  of  an  infirmity  of  the  flesh  I  preached  the 
gospel  unto  you  for  the  first  time."       Paul,  to  put  it 

volume  published  for  1880-84  there  is  an  article  of  more  than  200 
pages  treating  of  the  ancient  Cappadocian  and  Lycaonian  dialects,  and 
the  traces  of  them  which  remain.  On  p.  71  there  is  a  notice  of  the 
accuracy  with  which  Acts  xiv.  1 1  mentions  the  speech  or  dialect  of  the 
men  of  Lystra,  which  Mr.  Hogarth,  in  the  article  in  the  Journal  of 
Hellenic  Studies,  April  1890,  p.  157,  to  which  we  have  already  referred, 
identifies  with  the  Phrygian  dialect  spoken  till  the  sixth  century  of  our 
era.  Mr.  Hogarth  copied  several  inscriptions  in  this  ancient  Lycaonian 
or  Phrygian  speech.  See  also  an  English  article  by  Professor  W.  M. 
Ramsay  in  i>Mhx\s  Journal  of  Comparative  Philology  for  1887,  where 
he  treats  of  this  Lycaonian  speech,  and  avows  his  belief  (p.  382)  that 
Gr3eco-Roman  civilisation  and  language  did  not  begin  to  affect  the 
rural  parts  of  Northern  and  Eastern  Phrygia  till  A.D.  xoo,  long  after 
St.  Paul's  day.  The  mass  of  the  people  spoke  nothing  but  the  original 
Phrygian.  The  reader  who  wishes  to  investigate  what  I  consider  the 
bearing  of  this  subject  on  the  gift  of  tongues  should  consult  another 
article  in  English  by  Professor  Ramsay,  styled  Laodicea  Combusta,  in 
the  Transactions  of  the  German  Archaeological  Institute,  vol.  xiii., 
p.  248  (Athens,  1888). 


266  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


in  plain  language,  fell  sick  in  Galatia.^  He  was  delayed 
on  his  journey  by  the  ophthalmia  or  some  other  form 
of  disease,  which  was  his  thorn  in  the  flesh,  and  then, 
utilising  the  compulsory  delay,  and  turning  every 
moment  to  advantage,  he  evangelised  the  village  com- 
munities of  Galatia  with  which  he  came  in  contact,  so 
that  his  Epistle  is  directed,  not  as  in  other  cases  to  the 
Church  of  a  city  or  to  an  individual  man,  but  the  Epistle 
in  which  he  deals  with  great  fundamental  questions 
of  Christian  freedom  is  addressed  to  the  Churches  of 
Galatia,  a  vast  district  of  country.  Mere  accident,  as 
it  would  seem  to  the  eye  of  sense,  produced  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians,  which  shows  us  the  peculiar  weakness 
and  the  peculiar  strength  of  the  Celtic  race,  their  enthu- 
siasm, their  genuine  warmth,  their  fickleness,  their  love 
for  that  which  is  striking,  showy,  material,  exterior.^ 
But  when  we  pass  from  Galatia  we  know  nothing  of 
the  course  of  St.  Paul's  further  labours  in  Asia  Minor. 
St.  Luke  was  not  with  him  during  this  portion  of  his 
work,  and  so  the  details  given  us  are  very  few.  We 
are  told  that  "  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  "  would  not  permit 
him  to  preach  in  Bithynia,  though  Bithynia  became 
afterwards  rich  in  Christian  Churches,  and  was  one 
of  the  districts  to  which  St.  Peter  some  years  later 
addressed  his  first  Epistle.^     The  Jews  were  numerous 

'  See  Lightfoot's  Galatians.,  pp.  22  and  172. 

^  Those  who  have  access  to  great  libraries  will  see  a  good  description 
of  Galatia  accompanied  with  splendid  plates  in  Texier's  Description  de 
I'Asie,  in  3  vols,  folio,  published  at  Paris  between  1839  and  1849.  ^^r. 
Lewin  has  reproduced  some  of  the  pictures  in  his  Life  of  St.  Paul. 

^  We  owe  one  of  the  earliest  glimpses  of  the  Christian  Church  after 
apostolic  days  to  this  same  province  of  Bithynia.  Pliny  went  there  as 
proconsul  about  no  A.D.  He  found  the  whole  country  covered  with 
Christians,  and  the  Church  organised,  with  deaconesses  even,  as  in 
Greece  and  Ephesus.     See  the  first  volume  of  "this  commentary,  p.  274. 


xvi.6,8, 9.]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  267 

in  the  districts  of  Bithynia  and  Asia,  and  "  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus"  or  "the  Holy  Ghost" — for  the  sacred  writer 
seems  to  use  the  terms  as  equivalent  the  one  to  the 
other — had  determined  to  utilise  St.  Paul  in  working 
directly  among  the  Gentiles,  reserving  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel  to  the  Dispersion,  as  the  scattered  Jews 
were  called,  to  St.  Peter  and  his  friends.  It  is  thus 
we  would  explain  the  restraint  exercised  upon  St.  Paul 
on  this  occasion.  Divine  providence  had  cut  out  his 
great  work  in  Europe,  and  was  impelling  him  westward 
even  when  he  desired  to  tarry  in  Asia.  How  the  Spirit 
exercised  this  restraint  or  communicated  His  will  we 
know  not.  St.  Paul  lived,  however,  in  an  atmosphere  of 
Divine  communion.  He  cultivated  perpetually  a  sense  of 
the  Divine  presence,  and  those  who  do  so,  experience 
a  guidance  of  which  the  outer  world  knows  nothing. 
Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor,  in  one  of  his  marvellous  spiritual 
discourses  called  the  Via  Intelligentice,  or  The  Way  of 
Knowledge,  speaks  much  on  this  subject,  pointing  out 
that  they  who  live  closest  to  God  have  a  knowledge 
and  a  love  peculiar  to  themselves.^     And  surely  every 


The  picture  of  the  saintly  slave  deaconesses  tortured  for  their  faith 
within  ten  years  of  St.  John's  death  is  an  interesting  confirmation  of  the 
faith.  It  would  be  instnictive  to  trace  back  the  connexion  of  the  second- 
century  martyrs  who  have  been  well  authenticated,  with  the  Churches 
founded  by  the  apostles.  Justin  Martyr  suffered,  for  instance,  at  Rome 
about  A.D.  165.  With  h'm  there  died  Hierax,  who  had  been  born  of 
Christian  parents  at  Iconium.  His  grandfather  might  have  been  con- 
verted by  St.  Paul.  In  his  examination  he  dwells  upon  the  fact  that 
he  had  been  born  of  believing  parents.  See  Ruinart's  Acta  Sutcera, 
p.  44,  a  translation  of  which  passage  will  be  found  in  the  works  of 
Justin  Martyr,  in  Clark's  Series  of  Ante-Nicene  Writers. 

'  See  this  sermon  in  Taylor's  works,  vol.  viii.,  Ed.  C.  P.  Eden  (London, 
1850).  On  p.  380  we  find  the  following  eloquent  and  profound  passage 
bearing  on  this  point :  "  Lastly  there  is  a  sort  of  God's  dear  servants 
who  walk  in  perfectness,  who  perfect  holiness  in  the  fear  of  God,  and 


268  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

sincere  and  earnest  follower  of  Christ  has  experienced 
somewhat  of  the  same  mystical  blessings  !  God's  truest 
servants  commit  their  lives  and  their  actions  in  devout 
prayer  to  the  guidance  of  their  heavenly  Father,  and 
then  when  they  look  back  over  the  past  they  see  how 
marvellously  they  have  been  restrained  from  courses 
which  would  have  been  fraught  with  evil,  how  strangely 
they  have  been  led  by  ways  which  have  been  full  of 
mercy  and  goodness  and  blessing.  Thus  it  was  that 
St.  Paul  was  at  length  led  down  to  the  ancient  city  of 
Troas,  where  God  revealed  to  him  in  a  new  fashion  his 
ordained  field  of  labour.  A  man  of  Macedonia  appeared 
in  a  night  vision  inviting  him  over  to  Europe,  and 
saying,  "  Come  over  into  Macedonia,  and  help  us." 
Troas  was  a  very  fitting  place  in  which  this  vision 
should  appear.  Of  old  time  and  in  days  of  classic 
fable  Troas  had  been  the  meeting-place  where,  as  Homer 
and  as  Virgil  tell,  Europe  and  Asia  had  met  in  stern 
conflict,  and  where  Europe  as  represented  by  Greece 
had  come  off  victorious,  bringing  home  the  spoils  which 
human  nature  counted  most  precious.  Europe  and 
Asia  again  meet  at  Troas,  but  no  longer  in  carnal  con- 

they  have  a  degree  of  charity  and  divine  knowledge  more  than  we  can 
discourse  of,  and  more  certain  than  the  demonstrations  of  geometry, 
brighter  than  the  sun  and  indeficient  as  the  light  of  heaven.  This  is 
called  by  the  Apostle  the  a-rraiyafffxa  rod  deov.  Christ  is  this  '  brightness 
of  God  '  manifested  in  the  hearts  of  His  dearest  servants.  But  I  shall  say 
no  more  of  this  at  this  time,  for  this  is  to  be  felt  and  not  to  be  talked 
of ;  and  they  that  have  never  touched  it  with  their  finger,  may  secretly 
perhaps  laugh  at  it  in  their  heart,  and  be  never  the  wiser.  All  that 
I  have  now  to  say  of  it  is,  that  a  good  man  is  united  unto  God,  Kivrpov 
Kivrpi^  (Tvvd\pas,  as  a  flame  touches  a  flame  and  combines  into  splendour 
and  glory  ;  so  is  the  spirit  of  a  man  united  unto  Christ  by  the  Spirit 
of  God.  These  are  the  friends  of  God,  and  they  best  know  God's  mind, 
and  they  only  that  are  so  know  how  much  such  men  do  know.  They 
have  a  special  unction  from  above." 


xvi.6,8, 9]  APOSTOLIC  QUARRELS.  269 


flict  or  in  deadly  fight.  The  interests  of  Europe  and 
of  Asia  again  touch  one  another,  and  Europe  again 
carries  off  from  the  same  spot  spoil  more  precious  far 
than  Grecian  poet  ever  dreamt  of,  for  "when  Paul  had 
seen  the  vision,  straightway  we  sought  to  go  forth  into 
Macedonia,  concluding  that  God  called  us  for  to  preach 
the  gospel  unto  them."  Whereupon  we  notice  two 
points  and  offer  just  two  observations.  The  vision 
created  an  enthusiasm,  and  that  enthusiasm  was  con- 
tagious. The  vision  was  seen  by  Paul  alone,  but  was 
communicated  by  St.  Paul  unto  Silas  and  to  St.  Luke, 
who  now  had  joined  to  lend  perhaps  the  assistance  of 
his  medical  knowledge  to  the  afflicted  and  suffering 
Apostle.  Enthusiasm  is  a  marvellous  power,  and  endows 
a  man  with  wondrous  force.  St.  Paul  was  boiling 
over  with  enthusiasm,  but  he  could  not  always  impart 
it.  The  two  non-apostolic  Evangelists  are  marked 
contrasts  as  brought  before  us  in  this  history.  St. 
Paul  was  enthusiastic  on  his  first  tour,  but  that 
enthusiasm  was  not  communicated  to  St.  Mark.  He 
turned  back  from  the  hardships  and  dangers  of  the 
work  in  Asia  Minor.  St.  Paul  was  boiling  over  again 
with  enthusiasm  for  the  new  work  in  Europe.  He  has 
now  with  him  in  St.  Luke  a  congenial  soul  who,  when 
he  hears  the  vision,  gathers  at  once  its  import,  joyfully 
anticipates  the  work,  and  "  straightway  sought  to  go 
forth  into  Macedonia."  Enthusiasm  in  any  kind  of 
work  is  a  great  assistance,  and  nothing  great  or  success- 
ful is  done  without  it.  But  above  all  in  Divine  work, 
in  the  work  of  preaching  the  gospel,  the  man  devoid 
of  enthusiasm  begotten  of  living  communion  with  God 
such  as  St.  Paul  and  St.  Luke  enjoyed  is  sure  to  be  a 
lamentable  and  complete  failure. 

Then  again,  and  lastly,  we  note  the  slow  progress  of 


270  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


the  gospel  as  shown  to  us  by  this  incident  at  Troas. 
Here  we  are  a  good  twenty  years  after  the  Crucifixion, 
and  yet  the  chief  ministers  and  leaders  of  the  Church 
had  not  yet  crossed  into  Europe.  There  were  sporadic 
Churches  here  and  there.  At  Rome  and  at  possibly 
a  few  Italian  seaports,  whence  intercourse  with  Palestine 
was  frequent,  there  were  small  Christian  communities ; 
but  Macedonia  and  Greece  were  absolutely  untouched 
up  to  the  present.  We  are  very  apt  to  overrate  the 
progress  of  the  gospel  during  those  first  days  of  the 
Church's  earliest  Church  life.  We  are  inclined  to 
view  the  history  of  the  Church  of  the  first  three 
centuries  all  on  an  heap  as  it  were.  We  have  much 
need  to  distinguish  century  from  century  and  decennium 
from  decennium.  The  first  ten  years  of  the  Church's 
history  saw  the  gospel  preached  in  Jerusalem  and 
Palestine,  but  not  much  farther.  The  second  decennium 
saw  it  proclaimed  to  Asia  Minor ;  but  it  is  only  when 
the  third  decennium  is  opening  that  Christ  despatches 
a  formal  mission  to  that  Europe  where  the  greatest 
triumphs  of  the  gospel  were  afterwards  to  be  won. 
Ignorance  and  prejudice  and  narrow  views  had  been 
allowed  to  hinder  the  progress  of  the  gospel  then,  as 
they  are  hindering  the  progress  of  the  gospel  still  ; 
and  an  express  record  of  this  has  been  handed  down 
to  us  in  this  typical  history  in  order  that  if  we  too  suffer 
the  same  we  may  not  be  astonished  as  if  some  strange 
thing  had  happened,  but  may  understand  that  we  are 
bearing  the  same  burden  and  enduring  the  same  trials 
as  the  New  Testament  saints  have  borne  before  us. 


CHAPTER    XTI. 

ST.   PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA. 

"  The  jailor  called  for  lights,  and  sprang  in,  and,  trembling  for  fear, 
fell  down  before  Paul  and  Silas,  and  said.  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  ?  And  they  said,  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  thou  shall  be 
saved,  thou  and  thy  house  " — Acts  xvi.  29-31. 

'  *  When  they  had  passed  through  Amphipolis  and  ApoUonia,  they 
came  to  Thessalonica,  where  was  a  synagogue  of  the  Jews :  and  Paul, 
as  his  custom  was,  went  in  unto  them,  and  for  three  Sabbath  days 
reasoned  with  them  from  the  Scriptures,  .  .  .  And  the  brethren  imme- 
diately sent  away  Paul  and  Silas  by  night  into  Beroea  :  who  when  they 
were  come  thither  went  mto  the  synagogue  of  the  Jews. " — Acts  xvii. 
I,  2,  -10. 

TROAS  was  at  this  time  the  termination  of  St.  Paul's 
Asiatic  travels.  He  had  passed  diagonally  right 
through  Asia  Minor,  following  the  great  Roman  roads 
which  determined  his  line  of  march.  From  Troas  he 
proceeded  to  Philippi,  and  for  exactly  the  same  reason-. 
All  the  great  roads  formed  under  the  emperors  down  to 
the  time  of  Constantine  the  Great  led  to  Rome,  When 
the  seat  of  empire  was  moved  to  Constantinople,  all 
the  Asiatic  roads  converged  upon  that  city ;  but  in  St. 
Paul's  day  Rome  was  the  world's  centre  of  attraction, 
and  thither  the  highways  all  tended.  This  fact  explains 
St.  Paul's  movements.  The  Egnatian  Road  was  one 
of  the  great  channels  of  communication  established  for 
State  purposes  by  Rome,  and  this  road  ran  from 
Neapolis,  where  St.  Paul  landed,  through  Philippi  on 

271 


272  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  Dyrrachium,  a  port  on  the  Adriatic,  whence  the 
traveller  took  ship  to  Brundusium,  the  modern  Brindisi, 
and  thence  reached  Rome.  What  a  striking  com- 
mentary we  find  in  this  simple  fact  upon  the  words 
of  St.  Paul  in  Galatians  iv.  4 :  "  When  the  fulness  of 
the  time  came  God  sent  forth  His  Son."  Roman 
dominion  involved  much  suffering  and  war  and  blood- 
shed, but  it  secured  the  network  of  communication,  the 
internal  peace,  and  the  steady,  regular  government 
which  now  covered  Europe  as  well  as  Asia,  and  thus 
for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history  rendered  the 
diffusion  of  the  gospel  possible,  as  St.  Paul's  example 
here  shows.  The  voyage  from  Troas  to  Neapolis  was  ■ 
taken  by  the  Apostle  after  the  usual  fashion  of  the 
time.^  Neapolis  was  the  port  of  Philippi,  whence  it  is 
distant  some  eight  miles.  Travellers  from  the  East  to 
Rome  always  landed  there,  and  then  took  the  Egnatian 
Road  which  started  from  Neapolis.  If  they  were 
official  persons  they  could  use  the  public  postal  service, 
post-houses  being  established  at  a  distance  of  six 
miles  from  one  another,  where  relays  of  horses  were 
kept  at  the  public  expense,  to  carry  persons  travelling 
on  the  imperial  service.^     Paul  and  Silas,  Timothy  and 

'  Both  LcAvin  and  Conybeare  and  Howson  in  their  Lives  of  St. 
Paul  enter  into  great  details  about  the  sceneiy  and  other  circum- 
stances of  St.  Paul's  voyage  from  Troas  to  Neapolis,  which  would  be 
out  of  place  in  this  commentary,  even  if  space  did  allow  their  insertion. 
Mr.  Lewin's  account  is  specially  interesting,  as  he  gives  the  impressions 
made  upon  himself  when  going  over  the  ground.  These  writers  all 
point  out  that  St.  Paul  must  have  travelled  with  a  fair  wind ;  Cony- 
beare and  Howson  even  try  to  determine  its  exact  direction,  which  they 
maintain  was  from  the  southward.  Otherwise  he  could  not  have  made 
the  passage  in  two  days,  or  followed  the  course  actually  taken.  On  a 
subsequent  occasion  (Acts  xx.  6)  St.  Paul  took  five  days  in  sailing  from 
Philippi  to  Troas. 

*  Posts   for    the    conveyance  of   intelligence  were   established   by 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.i,2, 10.]    ST.   PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  273 

Luke,  must,  however,  have  travelled  on  foot  along 
the  Egnatian  Road  from  Neapolis  to  Philippi,  which 
was  their  first  objective  point,  according  to  St.  Paul's 
usual  policy,  of  attacking  large  and  important  centres 
of  population,  and  then  leaving  the  sacred  leaven  to 
work  out  into  the  surrounding  mass  of  paganism. 
Philippi  amply  rewarded  the  wisdom  of  his  plan,  and 
the  Philippian  Church  became  notable  for  its  zeal, 
its  faith,  its  activity,  among  the  Churches  which  owed 
their  origin  to  the  Apostle,  as  we  learn  from  the  Epistles 
addressed  to  the  Corinthians  and  to  the  Phihppians 
themselves  a  short  time  after  the  foundation  of  the 
Philippian  Church. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  circumstances  under  which 
that  foundation  was  laid.  To  understand  them  we 
must  go  back  upon  the  course  of  history.  Philippi  was 
a  city  built  by  King  Philip,  the  father  of  Alexander 
the  Great.  After  the  conquest  of  Macedonia  by  the 
Romans,  it  became  famous  as  the  scene  of  the  great 
battle  between  Brutus  and  Cassius  on  the  one  hand, 

Augustus  (see  Suetonius,  Att^.,  49).  Gibbon,  in  the  second  chapter  of 
his  History,  has  much  information  on  this  point.  The  reader  curious  in 
such  matters  will  find  a  learned  account  of  the  Roman  postal  service  in 
Godefroy's  Commentary  on  the  Theodosian  Code,  vol.  ii.,  p.  526,  where 
he  traces  the  system  down  from  Augustus  to  the  year  400  a.d.  It  was 
somewhat  similar  to  that  which  now  prevails  in  Russia.  An  interesting 
story  is  told  concerning  Constantine  the  Great,  which  illustrates  the 
system.  During  the  Diocletian  persecution  Constantine,  whose  leanings 
towards  Christianity  were  suspected,  was  residing  in  Asia  Minor  with 
the  Emperor  Galerius,  the  determined  enemy  of  Christianity.  Con- 
stantine knew  that  there  was  a  plot  against  him,  so,  having  obtained  the 
authority  necessary  to  use  the  post,  he  fled  secretly  one  night,  and  as 
he  rode  along  took  fresh  horses,  and  at  the  same  time  brought  the  tired 
animals  with  him.  When  his  enemies  followed  him  next  day,  they 
found  the  post  stables  empty,  and  their  prey  escaped  without  any 
possibility  of  pursuit.  See  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  vol.  i.,  p.  526,  Art. 
Constantinus  I.,  and  De  Broglie,  LjEglise  et  U Empire,  vol.  i.,  p.  192. 
VOL.  II.  18 


274  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  Mark  Antony  and  Augustus  on  the  other,  which 
decided  the  fate  of  the  empire  and  influenced  the 
course  of  the  world's  history  as  few  other  battles  have 
done.  At  the  time  of  St,  Paul's  visit  the  memory  of 
that  battle  was  fresh,  and  the  outward  and  visible 
signs  thereof  were  to  be  seen  on  every  side,  as  in- 
deed some  of  them  are  still  to  be  seen,  the  triumphal 
arches,  for  instance,  erected  in  memory  of  the  victory 
and  the  mound  or  rampart  of  earth  raised  by  Brutus  to 
hinder  the  advance  of  the  opposing  forces.^  But  these 
things  had  for  the  holy  travellers  a  very  slight  interest, 
as  their  hearts  were  set  upon  a  mightier  conflict  and  a 
nobler  war  far  than  any  ever  before  waged  upon  earth's 
surface.  There  is  no  mention  made  in  the  sacred 
narrative  of  the  memories  connected  with  the  place, 
and  yet  St.  Luke,  as  an  honest  writer  setting  down 
facts  of  which  he  had  formed  an  important  part,  lets 
slip  some  expressions  which  involve  and  throw  us 
back  upon  the  history  of  the  place  for  an  explanation, 
showing  how  impossible  it  is  to  grasp  the  full  force 
and  meaning  of  the  sacred  writers  unless  we  strive 
to  read  the  Bible  with  the  eyes  of  the  people  who 
lived  at  the  time  and  for  whom  it  was  written.  St. 
Luke  calls  PhiHppi  *'  a  city  of  Macedonia,  the  first 
of  the  district,  a  colony."  Now  this  means  that  in 
that  time  it  was  situated  in  the  Roman  province  of 
Macedonia,  that  it  was  either  the  capital  of  the  division 
of  Macedonia,  in  which  it  was  situated,  Macedonia 
being  subdivided  into  four  distinct  divisions  which 
were  kept  perfectly  separate,  or   else  that  it  was  the 

'  The  remains  of  this  rampart  still  exist.  They  are  described  in 
the  Mission  ArchSologiquc  de  Macedoine,  p.  103,  carried  out  under  the 
direction  of  M.  Leon  Heuzey,  by  order  of  Napoleon  III.,  and  pub- 
lished at  Paris  between  1864  and  1876. 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.  I,  2,  lo.]    ST.   PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  275 

first  city  the  traveller  met  upon  entering  Macedonia 
from  Asia,  and  further  that  it  was  a  Roman  colony, 
and  thus  possessed  peculiar  privileges.  When  we 
read  in  the  Bible  of  colonies  we  must  not  under- 
stand the  word  in  our  modern  sense.  Colonies  were 
then  simply  transcripts  of  the  original  city  whence  they 
had  come.  Roman  colonies  were  miniatures  or  copies  of 
Rome  itself  transplanted  into  the  provinces,  and  ruling 
as  such  amid  the  conquered  races  where  they  were 
placed.  They  served  a  twofold  purpose.  They  acted 
as  garrisons  to  restrain  the  turbulence  of  the  neigh- 
bouring tribes ;  and  if  we  study  Roman  geography 
carefully  we  shall  find  that  they  were  always  placed 
in  neighbourhoods  where  their  military  importance  is 
plainly  manifest;  and  further  still,  they  were  used  as 
convenient  places  to  locate  the  veteran  soldiers  of  Italy 
who  had  served  their  time,  where  they  were  rewarded 
with  grants  of  land,  and  were  utilising  at  the  same  time 
the  skill  and  experience  in  military  matters  which  they 
had  gained,  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  State. 

Augustus  made  Philippi  into  a  colony,  erecting  a 
triumphal  arch  to  celebrate  his  victory  over  Brutus, 
and  placing  there  a  large  settlement  of  his  veterans  who 
secured  for  him  this  important  outpost.  The  colonies 
which  were  thus  dispersed  along  the  military  frontier, 
as  we  should  put  it  in  modern  language,  were  specially 
privileged.  All  the  settlers  were  Roman  citizens,  and 
the  government  of  the  colony  was  like  that  of  the 
mother  city  itself,  in  the  hands  of  two  magistrates, 
called  in  Greek  Strategoi,  or  in  Latin  Praetors,^  who  ruled 

'  The  proper  official  title  of  the  highest  magistrates  of  a  colony  was 
Duumviri.  The  colonies  where  a  Greek  spirit  prevailed  did  not  like 
this  title,  and  called  themselves  Praetors,  or  ZTparriyoi,  as  in  the  case  of 
Philippi.     In  exact  accordance  with  St.  Luke's  usage  Cicero,  a  century 


276  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

according  to  the  laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables  and  after 
Roman  methods,  though  perhaps  all  the  neighbouring 
cities  were  still  using  their  ancient  iaws  and  customs 
handed  down  from  times  long  prior  to  the  Roman 
Conquest.  The  details  given  us  by  St.  Luke  are  in  the 
strictest  accordance  in  all  these  respects  with  the  facts 
which  we  know  independently  concerning  the  history 
and  political  status  of  Philippi. 

St.  Paul  and  his  companions  arrived  in  Philippi  in 
the  early  part  of  the  week.  He  was  by  this  time  a 
thoroughly  experienced  traveller.  Five  years  later, 
when  writing  his  Second  Epistle  to  Corinth,  he  tells 
us  that  he  had  been  already  three  times  shipwrecked ; 
so  that,  unless  peculiarly  unfortunate,  he  must  have 
already  made  extended  and  repeated  sea  voyages,  though 
up  to  the  present  we  have  only  heard  of  the  journeys 
from  Antioch  to  Cyprus,  from  Cyprus  to  Perga,  and 
from  Attaleia  back  to  Antioch.^  A  two  days'  voyage 
across  the  fresh  and  rolling  waters  of  the  Mediterranean, 
following  by  a  steep  climb  over  Mountain  Pangaeus 
which  intervenes  between  Philippi  and  its  port  Neapolis, 
made,  however,  a  rest  of  a  day  or  two  very  accept- 
able to  the  Apostle  and  his  friends.  St.  Paul  never 
expected  too  much  from  his  own  body,  or  from  the 
bodies  of  his  companions ;  and  though  he  knew  the  work 
of  a  world's  salvation  was  pressing,  yet  he  could  take 

earlier,  tells  us  in  one  of  his  Epistles,  speaking  of  the  vanity  of  Capua, 
which  was  thoroughly  Greek  in  spirit,  and  therefore  very  vain  :  "  While 
in  other  colonies  the  magistrates  are  called  Duumviri,  these  wish  them- 
selves to  be  styled  Preetors, "  a  weakness  laughed  at  in  Horace's  Satires, 
lib.  i.,  V.  34-6.  Dion  Chrysostom,  a  Greek  rhetorician  of  St.  Paul's  day, 
mocks  the  Greeks  for  the  same  flashy  spirit. 

'  The  common  pronunciation  of  Attaleia,  or  as  it  is  spelt  in  the 
Authorised  Version,  Attalia,  is  with  the  t  short.  The  "i"  represents, 
however,  the  Greek  diphthong  ei,  and  is  long. 


xvi. 29-31  ;xvii.  1,2,  lo.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  277 

and  enjoy  a  well-earned  holiday  from  time  to  time. 
There  was  nothing  in  St.  Paul  of  that  eternal  fussiness 
which  we  at  times  see  in  people  of  strong  imagina- 
tions but  weak  self-control,  who,  realising  the  awful 
amount  of  woe  and  wickedness  in  the  world,  can 
never  be  at  rest  even  for  a  httle.  The  men  of  God 
remained  quiet  therefore  (ch.  xvi.  12,  1 3)  till  the  Sabbath 
Day,  when,  after  their  usual  custom,  they  sought 
out  in  the  early  morning  the  Jewish  place  of  worship, 
where  St.  Paul  always  first  proclaimed  the  gospel. 
The  Jewish  colony  resident  at  Philippi  must  have  been 
a  very  small  one.  The  Rabbinical  rule  was  that  where 
ten  wise  men  existed  there  a  synagogue  might  be 
established.^  There  cannot  therefore  have  been  ten 
learned,  respectable,  and  substantial  Jews  in  Philippi 
competent  to  act  as  a  local  sanhedrin  or  court.  Where, 
however,  the  Jews  could  not  establish  a  synagogue, 
they  did  not  live  without  any  external  expression  of 
religion.  They  knew  how  easily  neglect  of  public 
worship  is  followed  by  practical  atheism,  as  we  often 
see.  Men  may  say  indeed  that  God  can  be  realised, 
and  can  be  worshipped  anywhere, — a  very  great  truth 
and  a  very  precious  one  for  those  who  are  unavoidably 
cut  off  from  the  public  worship  of  the  Most  High ; 
but  a  truth  which  has  no  application  to  those  who 
wilfully  cut  themselves  off  from  that  worship  which 
has  the  covenanted  promise  of  His  presence.  It  is  not 
a  good  sign  for  the  young  men  of  this  generation  that 
so  many  of  them  utterly  neglect  public  worship ;  for  as 
surely  as  men  act  so,  then  present  neglect  will  be 
followed  by  a  total  forgetfulness  of  the  Eternal,  and 

'  See  Dr.  John  Lightfoot's  Horce  Hebraicce  on  Matt.  iv.  23 ;  Works 
(London,  1684),  vol.  ii.,  pp.  132-34,  for  the  Rabbinical  legislation  on 
Synagogues  and  their  erection. 


278  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

by  a  disregard  of  the  laws  which  He  has  estabHshed 
amongst  men.  The  Jews  at  Philippi  did  not  follow  this 
example  ;  when  they  could  not  establish  a  synagogue 
they  set  apart  an  oratory  or  Place  of  Prayer,  whither 
they  resorted  on  the  Sabbath  Day  to  honour  the  God 
of  their  fathers,  and  to  keep  alive  in  their  children's 
hearts  the  memory  of  His  laws  and  doings/ 

The  original  name  of  Phihppi  was  Crenides,  or  Place 
of  Streams.^  Beside  one  of  these  streams  the  Jews 
had  placed  their  oratory,  and  there  St.  Paul  preached 
his  first  sermon  in  Europe  and  gained  Lydia,  his  first 
European  convert,  a  Jewess  by  blood,  a  woman  of 
Thyatira  in  Asia  Minor  by  birth,  of  Philippi  in 
Macedonia  by  residence,  and  a  dyer  in  purple  by  trade.^ 

'  A  local  illustration  of  this  typical  Church  history  occurs  to  me. 
Oliver  Cromwell  planted  Ireland,  especially  the  golden  vale  of  Tipperary, 
with  his  Puritan  soldiers.  They  were  strong  Nonconformists,  and 
refused  therefore  after  the  Restoration  to  worship  according  to  the 
forms  of  the  Established  Church.  Their  children  after  a  generation  or 
two  almost  universally  fell  into  the  arms  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and 
now  many  of  the  leading  members  of  the  National  League  are  Roman 
Catholic  descendants  of  Cromwell's  Puritans,  and  display  still  the  same 
vigorous  qualities  which  adorned  their  Protestant  ancestors  in  the 
copious  abuse  they  pour  upon  the  memory  of  the  men  from  whom 
they  are  descended. 

^  I  am  here  reminded  of  a  i^lace  with  exactly  the  same  name  which 
became  as  famous  in  the  history  of  the  Celtic  Church  as  Philippi  did 
in  that  of  the  Macedonian  Church.  Fore,  in  the  county  of  We^tmeath, 
means  Place  or  Valley  of  Streams.  It  was  celebrated  in  the  seventh 
century  as  a  great  missionary  establishment,  at  the  head  of  which  stood 
St.  Fechin,  a  primitive  Celtic  missionary.  His  oratory,  cell,  and 
ancient  church  are  still  to  be  seen.  I  have  described  them  in  a  paper 
contributed  to  the  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Irish  Antiquaries  for 
this  year  (1892).  A  comparison  of  St.  Paul's  missionaiy  methods  with 
those  of  St.  Fechin  would  be  interesting.  They  are  fully  described  in 
Colgan's  Acts  of  the  Irish  Saints. 

^  The  guild  of  dyers  at  Thyatira  is  celebrated  in  the  inscriptions  be- 
longing to  that  city  found  in  Bceckh's  Corpus  Inscriptioniim  Gracartim. 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.  1,2,  10.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  279 

The  congregation  of  women  assembled  at  that  oratory 
must  have  been  a  very  small  one.     When  Philippi  did 
not  afford  a  sufficient  Jewish  population  for  the  erection 
of  a  synagogue  such  as  was  found  among  the  smaller 
towns  of  Asia  Minor,  and  such  as  we  shall  in  the  course 
of  the   present    tour  find    to    have   existed    at    towns 
and  cities  of  no  great  size  in  Greece  and  Macedonia, 
then  we  may  be  sure  that  the  female  population,  who 
assembled   that    Sabbath  morning  to   pray  and    listen 
to  the  Scriptures,  must  have  been  a  small  one.     But 
St.  Paul  and  his  companions  had  learned  already  one 
great  secret  of  the  true  evangehst's  life.     They  never 
despised  a  congregation  because  of  its  smallness.     I  have 
read  somewhere  in  the  writings  of  St.  Francis  de  Sales, 
Bishop  of  Geneva,   a    remark  bearing  on   this    point. 
De   Sales   was  an  extreme    Roman    Catholic,   and  his 
mind  was   injured  and  his  mental  views  perverted   in 
many  respects  by  the  peculiar  training  he  thus  received. 
But  still  he  was  in  many  respects  a  very  saintly  man, 
and  his  writings  embody  much  that  is  good  for  every 
one.     In  one  of  his  letters  which  I  have  read  he  deals 
with  this  very  point,  and  speaks  of  the  importance  of 
small  congregations,  first,  because  they  have  no  tendency 
to  feed  the  preacher's  pride,  but  rather  help  to  keep 
him  humble ;  and  secondly,  because  some  of  the  most 
effective  and  fruitful  sermons  have  been  preached  to 
extremel;y   small  congregations,   two  or  three  persons 
at  most,  some  one  of  whom  has  afterwards  turned  out  to 
be  a  most  vigorous  soldier  of  the  Cross  of  Christ.     The 
most  effective  sermon  perhaps  that  ever  was  preached 
was  that  delivered  to  Saul  of  Tarsus  when  to  him  alone 
came   the  voice,    "  Saul,    Saul,  why  persecutest  thou 
Me  ?  "     And  here  again,  in  the  Philippian  Oratory,  the 
congregation   was   but   a   small   one,  yet   the  Apostle 


28o  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

despised  it  not.  He  and  his  companions  bent  all  their 
powers  to  the  work,  threw  their  whole  hearts  into  it, 
and  as  the  result  the  Lord  rewarded  their  earnest, 
thorough,  faithful  service  as  He  rewards  such  service  in 
every  department  of  life's  action.  The  Lord  opened 
the  heart  of  Lydia  so  that  she  attended  to  the  apostolic 
teaching,  and  she  and  all  her  household  when  duly  in- 
structed became  baptized  disciples  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
This  was  an  important  incident  in  the  history  of 
the  Philippian  Church,  and  was  attended  by  far-reaching 
results.  Lydia  herself,  like  so  many  others  of  God's 
most  eminent  saints,  disappears  at  once  and  for  ever 
from  the  scene.  But  her  conversion  was  a  fruitful 
one.  St.  Paul  and  his  friends  continued  quietly  but 
regularly  working  and  teaching  at  the  oratory.  Lydia 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  widow,  and  must  have  been 
a  woman  of  some  position  in  the  little  community ; 
for  she  was  able  to  entertain  the  Apostle  and  his 
company  as  soon  as  she  embraced  the  faith  and  felt 
its  exceeding  preciousness.  When  inviting  them,  too, 
she  uses  the  language  of  a  woman  independent  of  all 
other  control.  "If  ye  have  judged  me  to  be  faithful 
to  the  Lord,  come  into  my  house  and  abide  there,"  are 
words  with  the  tone  of  one  who  as  a  widow  owned  no 
superior,  and  whose  will  was  law  within  her  own  house- 
hold ;  as  well  as  the  language  of  a  woman  who  felt  that 
the  gospel  she  had  embraced  demanded  and  deserved 
the  consecration  to  its  service  of  all  her  worldly  pos- 
sessions. Previously  to  this  conversion  St.  Paul  had 
lived  in  hired  lodgings,  but  now  he  moved  to  Lydia's 
residence,  abiding  there,  and  thence  regularly  wor- 
shipping at  the  Jewish  oratory.  The  presence  of 
these  Jewish  strangers  soon  attracted  attention.  Their 
teaching  too  got  noised  abroad,  exaggerated  doubtless 


xvi.  29-31  ;xvii.  1,2,  lo.]    ST.   PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  281 

and  distorted  after  the  manner  of  popular  reports. 
And  the  crowd  were  ready  to  be  suspicious  of  all 
Eastern  foreigners.  The  settlers  in  the  colony  of 
Philippi  belonged  to  the  rural  population  of  Italy,  who, 
after  the  manner  of  countrified  folk  of  every  generation, 
were  a  good  way  behind,  for  good  or  ill,  their  city 
brethren.  The  excavations  made  at  Philippi  have 
brought  to  light  the  fact  that  the  colonists  there  were 
worshippers  of  the  primitive  Italian  rustic  gods, 
specially  of  the  god  Silvanus,  eschewing  the  fashion- 
able Greek  deities,  Jupiter,  Juno,  Venus,  Diana,  Apollo, 
and  such  like.  A  temple  of  Silvanus  was  erected  at 
PhiUppi  for  the  hardy  Italian  veterans,  and  numerous 
inscriptions  have  been  found  and  have  been  duly 
described  by  the  French  Mission  in  Macedonia  to 
which  we  have  already  referred,  telling  of  the  building 
of  the  temple  and  of  the  persons  who  contributed 
towards  it.^  These  simple  Western  soldiers  were 
easily  prejudiced  against  the  Eastern  strangers  by 
reports  spread  concerning  their  doctrines,  and  specially 


'  See  Leon  Heuzey's  Amission  Ajxhcologiqiie  de  Macedoine,  p.  71 
(Paris,  1864-76).  One  tablet  found  furnishes  a  list  of  benefactions. 
One  man  gives  a  bronze  statue  of  the  deity,  another  helps  to  roof 
the  building.  Another  tablet  gives  a  list  of  the  officials  of  the  temple 
worship.  Curiously  enough  among  these  officials  occur  names  wrell 
known  to  us  from  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  as  Crescens,  Secundus,  Trophirnus, 
Aristarchus,  Pudens,  U'banus,  and  Clemens  ;  of.  the  Philippian 
inscriptions  in  the  Corpus  Inscriptionuin  Latinaruia,  vol.  iii.,  par.  i., 
pp.  120-28.  Among  these  rude  Italian  veterans,  unspoilt  by  the 
glitter  and  vices  of  Greek  idolatry  and  civilisation,  the  Cross  may  have 
found  out  many  true  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ :  see  I^ewin's  St.  Paul, 
vol.  i.,  p.  210.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  a  similar  set  of  tablets 
commemorating  the  benefactors  of  the  temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus 
was  discovered  in  the  excavations  made  twenty  years  ago  at  that 
place.  The  inscriptions  are  translated  in  the  Appendix  to  Wood's 
Ephesus. 


282  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

concerning  the  Jewish  King,  of  whose  kingdom  they 
were  the  heralds.     Pohtical  considerations  were  at  once 
raised.     We  can  scarcely   now  realise   the  suspicions 
which  must  have  been  roused  against  the  early  preachers 
of  Christianity  by  the  very  language  they  used.     Their 
sacramental  language  concerning  the  body  and  blood 
of  Christ,   the  language   of  Christian   love  and    union 
which  they  used,  designating  themselves  brethren  and 
sisters,  caused  for   more  than   two  centuries    the  dis- 
semination of  the    most  frightful  rumours  concerning 
the   horrible    nature    of  Christian    love-feasts.      They 
were  accused  of  cannibalism  and  of  the  most  degraded 
and    immoral   practices ;    and    when    we    take    up    the 
Apologists  of  the  second  century,  Justin   Martyr  and 
such  like,  we  shall   find  that  the  efforts  of  these  men 
are  largely  directed  to  the  refutation  of  such  dreadful 
charges.^     And  as  it  was  in  morals  so  was  it  too  in 
politics.     The    sacred    and   religious    language    of   the 
Christians    caused    them    to    be    suspected   of  designs 
hostile    to    the    Roman    Government.      The    apostles 
preached  about  a  King  who  ruled  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Now  the  Romans  abhorred  the  very  name  and  title  of 
king,  which  they  associated  with  the  cruel  acts  of  the 
early  tyrants    who    reigned    in    the    times    of  Rome's 
fabulous  antiquity.     The  hostility  to   the   title  was  so 
great    that,    though    the     Roman    people    endured     a 
despotism  much  worse  and  crushing  at  the  hands  of 
the   Caesars,  they  never  would  allow  them    to  assume 
the  title  of  kings,  but    simply  called   them  emperors, 
imperators  or  commanders  of  the  army,  a  name  which 

'  See,  for  instance,  Justin  Martyr's  jFirsi  Apology,  ch.  xxix.,  Second 
Apology,  ch.  xii.,  and  Athenagoras'  Apology,  chs.  xxxi.-xxxv.  These 
passages  will  be  found  in  Justin  Martyr  and  Athenagoras  as  translated 
in  T.  &  T.  Clark's  Ante-Nicene  Series,  pp.  32,  81,  415-19. 


xvi.  29-31  ;xvii.  1,2,  lo.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  283 

to  their  ears  connoted  nothing  savouring  of  the  kingly 
office,  though  for  moderns  the  title  of  emperor  ex- 
presses the  kingly  office  and  much  more.  The  colonists 
in  Philippi,  being  Italians,  would  feel  these  prejudices 
in  their  full  force.  Easterns  indeed  would  have  had 
no  objection  to  the  title  of  king,  as  we  see  from  the 
cry  raised  by  the  mob  of  Jerusalem  when  they  cried 
in  reference  to  Christ's  claim,  "  We  have  no  king  but 
Caesar."  But  the  rough  and  rude  Roman  veterans, 
when  they  heard  vague  reports  of  St.  Paul's  teaching 
to  the  Jews  who  met  at  the  oratory  by  the  river-side, 
quite  naturally  mistook  the  nature  of  his  doctrine,  and 
thought  that  he  was  simply  a  pohtical  agitator  organis- 
ing a  revolt  against  imperial  authority.^  An  incident 
which  then  occurred  fanned  the  slumbering  embers 
into  a  flame.  There  was  a  female  slave  the  property 
of  some  crafty  men  who  by  her  means  traded  on  the 
simplicity  of  the  colonists.  She  was  possessed  with 
a  spirit  of  divination.  What  the  nature  of  this  spirit 
was  we  have  not  the  means  of  now  determining.  Some 
would  resolve  it  into  mere  epilepsy,  but  such  an  explana- 
tion is  not  consistent  with  St.  Paul's  action  and  words. 
He  addressed  the  spirit,  "  I  charge  thee  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  come  out  of  her."  And  the  spirit,  we 
are  told,  came  out  that  very  hour.  The  simple  fact  is 
that  psychology  is  at  the  best  a  very  obscure  science, 

'  This  political  prejudice  against  Christianity  lasted  into  the  second 
century:  see  the  First  Apology  oi  '^wsWn'hla.xiyr,  ch.  xi.  :  "When  you 
,  hear  that  we  look  for  a  kingdom,  you  suppose,  without  making  any 
inquiry,  that  we  speak  of  a  human  kingdom  ;  whereas  we  speak  of  that 
which  is  with  God,  as  appears  also  from  the  confession  of  their  faith 
made  by  those  who  are  charged  with  being  Christians,  though  they 
know  that  death  is  the  punishment  awarded  to  him  who  so  confesses  "  ; 
words  which  imply  that  in  Justin's  day  many  had  been  martyred  on 
mere  political  accusations. 


284  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  the  mysteries  of  the  soul  a  very  puzzling  region, 
even  under  the  Christian  Dispensation  and  surrounded 
by  the  spiritual  blessings  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  But 
paganism  was  the  kingdom  of  Satan,  where  he  ruled 
with  a  power  and  freedom  he  no  longer  enjoys,  and  we 
can  form  no  conception  of  the  frightful  disturbances 
Satanic  agency  may  have  raised  amid  the  dark  places 
of  the  human  spirit.  Without  attempting  explanations 
therefore,  which  must  be  insufficient,  I  am  content  to 
accept  the  statement  of  the  sacred  writer,  who  was  an 
eye-witness  of  .the  cure,  that  the  spirit  of  divination, 
the  spirit  of  Python,  as  the  original  puts  it,  yielded 
obedience  to  the  invocation  of  the  sacred  Name  which 
is  above  every  name,  leaving  the  damsel's  inner  nature 
once  more  calm  and  at  union  within  itself.  This  was 
the  signal  for  a  riot.  The  slave  owners  recognised 
that  their  hopes  of  gain  had  fled.  They  were  not 
willing  to  confess  that  these  despised  Jews  possessed  a 
power  transcending  far  that  which  dwelt  in  the  human 
instrument  who  had  served  their  covetous  purposes. 
They  may  have  heard,  it  may  be,  of  the  tumults  excited 
about  this  same  time  by  the  Jews  at  Rome  and  of 
their  expulsion  from  the  capital  by  the  decree  of  the 
Emperor,  so  the  owners  of  the  slave-girl  and  the  mob  of 
the  city  dragged  the  Apostles  before  the  local  Duumvirs 
and  accused  them  of  like  disturbances :  "  These  men, 
being  Jews,  do  exceedingly  trouble  our  city,  and  set 
forth  customs  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  us  to  receive  or  to 
observe,  being  Romans."  The  accusation  was  sufficient. 
No  proof  was  demanded,  no  time  for  protest  allowed. 
The  magistrates  with  their  own  hands  dragged  the 
clothes  off  the  backs  of  the  Apostles,  and  they  were 
flogged  at  once  by  the  lictors  or  sergeants,  as  our 
translation  calls  them,  in  attendance  upon  the  Duumvirs, 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.  I,  2,  lo.]    ST.   PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  285 

who  then  despatched  their  victims  to  the  common 
prison.  Here  a  question  may  be  raised,  Why  did  not 
St.  Paul  save  himself  by  protesting  that  he  was  a 
Roman  citizen,  as  he  did  subsequently  at  Jerusalem 
when  he  was  about  to  be  similarly  treated  ?  Several 
explanations  occur.  The  colonists  were  Italians  and 
spoke  Latin.  St.  Paul  spoke  Hebrew  and  Greek,  and 
though  he  may  have  known  Latin  too,  his  Latin  may 
not  have  been  understood  by  these  rough  Roman 
soldiers.  The  mob  again  was  excited,  and  when  a  mob 
gets  excited  it  is  but  very  little  its  members  attend  to  an 
unfortunate  prisoner's  words.  We  know  too,  not  only 
from  St.  Paul's  own  words,  but  from  the  testimony  of 
Cicero  himself,  in  his  celebrated  oration  against  Verres, 
that  in  remote  districts  this  claim  was  often  disregarded, 
even  when  urged  by  Italians,  and  much  more  when 
made  by  despised  Jews.  St.  Paul  tells  us  in  2  Cor. 
xi.  25,  that  he  received  three  Roman  floggings  notwith- 
standing his  Roman  citizenship,  and  though  the  Philip- 
pian  magistrates  were  afraid  when  they  heard  next  day 
of  the  illegal  violence  of  which  they  had  been  guilty, 
the  mob,  who  could  not  be  held  accountable,  probably 
took  right  good  care  that  St.  Paul's  protest  never 
reached  the  official  ears  to  which  it  was  addressed. 
These  considerations  sufficiently  account  for  the  omis- 
sion of  any  notice  of  a  protest  on  the  Apostle's  part. 
He  simply  had  not  the  opportunity,  and  then  when  the 
tumultuous  scene  was  over  Paul  and  Silas  v^ere  hurried 
off  to  the  common  dungeon,  where  they  were  secured 
in  the  stocks  and  thrust  into  the  innermost  prison  as 
notorious  and  scandalous  offenders. 

No  ill-treatment  could,  however,  destroy  that  secret 
source  of  joy  and  peace  which  St.  Paul  possessed  in 
his  loved  Master's  conscious  presence.    "  I  take  pleasure 


286  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

in  weaknesses,  in  injuries,  in  necessities,  in  persecutions, 
in  distresses  for  Christ's  sake,"  is  his  own  triumphant 
expression  when  looking  back  a  few  years  later  over 
the  way  by  which  the  Lord  had  led  him,  and  therefore 
at  midnight  the  astonished  prisoners  heard  the  inner 
dungeon  ringing  with  unwonted  songs  of  praise  raised 
by  the  Jewish  strangers.  An  earthquake,  too,  lent  its 
terrors  to  the  strange  scene,  shaking  the  prison  to  its 
foundations  and  loosing  the  staples  to  which  the 
prisoners'  chains  were  fastened.  The  jailor,  roused 
from  sleep,  and  seeing  the  prison  doors  opened  wide, 
would  have  committed  suicide  were  it  not  for  Paul's 
restraining  and  authoritative  voice  ;  and  then  the  aston- 
ished official,  who  must  have  heard  the  strange  rumours 
to  which  the  words  of  the  demoniac  alluded — "These 
men  are  the  servants  of  the  Most  High  God,  which 
proclaim  unto  you  the  way  of  salvation  " — rushed  into 
the  presence  of  the  Apostles  crying  out  in  words  which 
have  ever  since  been  famous,  "  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to 
be  saved  ?  "  to  which  the  equally  famous  answer  was 
given,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved,  thou  and  thy  house."  The  jailor  then  took  the 
Apostles,  bathed  their  bruised  bodies,  set  food  before 
them,  gathered  his  household  to  listen  to  the  glad 
tidings,  which  they  received  so  rapidly  and  grasped  so 
thoroughly  that  they  were  at  once  baptized  and  enabled 
to  rejoice  with  that  deep  spiritual  joy  which  an  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  God  always  confers.  The  jailor, 
feeling  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  peace  which 
passeth  all  understanding,  realised  the  truth  which 
St.  Augustine  afterwards  embodied  in  the  immortal 
words :  "  Thou,  O  God,  hast  formed  us  for  Thyself, 
and  our  hearts  are  restless  till  they  find  rest  in  Thee," ' 
'  Augustine's  Confessions,  i.  I. 


xvi.  29-31  ;  xvii.  I,  2,  10.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  287 


Let  us  look  for  a  little  at  the  question  of  the  jailor 
and  the  answer  of  the  Apostle.  They  are  words  very 
often  used,  and  very  often  misused.  The  jailor,  when 
he  rushed  into  St.  Paul's  presence  crying  out  "  What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  was  certainly  not  the  type  of 
a  conscience-stricken  sinner,  convinced  of  his  own  sin 
and  spiritual  danger,  as  men  sometimes  regard  him. 
He  was  simply  in  a  state  of  fright  and  astonishment. 
He  had  heard  that  these  Jewish  prisoners  committed  to 
him  were  preaching  about  some  salvation  which  they 
had  to  offer.  The  earthquake  seemed  to  him  the  ex- 
pression of  some  deity's  wrath  at  their  harsh  treatment, 
and  so  in  his  terror  he  desires  to  know  what  he  must  do 
to  be  saved  from  this  wrath.  His  words  were  notable, 
but  they  were  not  Christian  words,  for  he  had  yet  much 
to  learn  of  the  nature  of  sin  and  the  nature  of  the  salva- 
tion from  it  which  the  Apostles  were  preaching.  The 
Philippian  jailor  was  a  specimen  of  those  who  are  saved 
violently  and  by  fear.  Terror  forced  him  into  com- 
munion with  the  Apostles,  broke  down  the  barriers 
which  hindered  the  approach  of  the  Word,  and  then 
the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  working  through  St.  Paul, 
effected  the  remainder,  opening  his  eyes  to  the  true 
character  of  salvation  and  his  own  profound  need  of 
it.  St.  Paul's  words  have  been  misunderstood.  I  have 
heard  them  addressed  to  a  Christian  congregation  and 
explained  as  meaning  that  the  jailor  had  nothing  to  do 
but  just  realise  Christ  Jesus  as  his  Saviour,  whereupon 
he  was  perfect  and  complete  so  far  as  the  spiritual  life 
was  concerned ;  and  then  they  were  applied  to  the  con- 
gregation present  as  teaching  that,  as  it  was  with  the 
jailor,  so  was  it  with  all  Christians ;  they  have  simply 
to  believe  as  he  did,  and  tjien  they  have  nothing  more 
to  do, — a  kind   of   teaching  which  infallibly  produces 


288  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

antinomian  results.^  Such  an  explanation  ignores  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the  jailor, 
who  was  not  a  Christian  in  any  sense  and  knew 
nothing  about  Christ  when  he  flung  himself  at  St. 
Paul's  feet,  and  a  Christian  congregation,  who  know 
about  Christ  and  believe  in  Him.  But  this  explanation 
is  still  more  erroneous.  It  misrepresents  what  St.  Paul 
meant  and  what  his  hearers  understood  him  to  mean. 
What  did  any  ordinary  Jew  or  any  ordinary  pagan 
with  whom  St.  Paul  came  in  contact  understand  him 
to  mean  when  he  said,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus, 
and  thou  shalt  be  saved  "  ?  They  first  had  to  ask 
him  who  Jesus  Christ  was,  whence  He  had  come,  what 
He  had  taught,  what  were  the  obligations  of  His 
religion.  St.  Paul  had  to  open  out  to  them  the  nature 
of  sin  and  salvation,  and  to  explain  the  obligation  and 
blessing  of  the  sacrament  of  baptism  as  well  as  the 
necessity  of  bodily  holiness  and  purity.  The  initial 
sacrament  of  baptism  must  have  held  a  foremost  place 
in  that  midnight  colloquy  or  conference  concerning 
Christian  truth.  St.  Paul  was  not  the  man  to  perform 
a  rite  of  which  his  converts  understood  nothing,  and  to 
which  they  could  attach  no  meaning.  "  Believe  on 
the  Lord  Jesus "  involved  repentance  and  contrition 
and  submission  to  Christian  truth,  and  these  things 
involved  the  exposition  of  Christian  truth,  history, 
doctrines,  and  duties. 

This  text,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  thou 
shalt  be  saved,"  is  often  quoted  in  one-sided  and 
narrow  teaching  to  show  that  man  has  nothing  to  do 
to  be  saved.     Of  course  in  one  sense  this  is  perfectly 


'  See  more  on  this  point  in  vol.  i.,  pp.  134-37,  where  I  have  given 
conclusive  proofs  of  the  misuse  of  this  text  from  the  writers  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.  1,2,  lo.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  289 

true.  We  can  do  nothing  meritoriously  towards  salva- 
tion ;  from  first  to  last  our  salvation  is  all  of  God's  free 
grace ;  but  then,  viewing  the  matter  from  the  human 
side,  we  have  much  to  do  to  be  saved.  We  have  to 
repent,  to  seek  God  for  ourselves,  to  realise  Christ  and 
His  laws  in  our  life,  to  seek  after  that  holiness  without 
which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord.  There  were  two 
different  types  of  men  who  at  different  times  addressed 
practically  the  same  inquiry  to  the  Apostles.  They 
were  both  outside  the  Church,  and  they  were  both 
seekers  blindly  after  God.  The  Jews  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost  said,  '*  Brethren,  what  shall  we  do  ?  "  and 
Feter  replied,  "  Repent  ye,  and  be  baptized,  every  one 
of  you,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  unto  the  remission 
of  your  sins,  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  Such  was  apostolic  teaching  to  the  Jews  of 
Jerusalem.  The  jailer  demanded,  "  What  must  I  do  to 
be  saved  ?  "  and  St.  Paul  replied,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  Such  was  apostolic 
teaching  to  an  ignorant  pagan  at  Philippi  ;  more 
concise  than  the  Jerusalem  answer,  but  meaning  the 
same  thing,  and  involving  precisely  the  same  doctrines 
in  the  hands  of  such  a  great  master  of  the  spiritual  life 
as  was  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.^ 

'  Mr.  Sadler,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Acts,  treating  of  this  passage 
has  a  long  explanation  identical  in  meaning  with  that  which  we  have 
above  urged.  He  says,  for  instance,  p.  314  :  "This  statement  of  the 
way  of  salvation  is  one  of  the  most  important  in  the  New  Testament. 
It  contains  the  seed  of  the  whole  body  of  apostolic  doctrine  respecting 
salvation  by  Christ.  When  I  say  apostolic,  I  mean  the  doctrine  of 
SS.  Peter  and  John,  as  well  as  of  St.  Paul ;  for  all  being  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  preached  the  same.  Few  places  have  been  more  per- 
verted in  order  to  uphold  a  heresy  which,  if  St.  Paul  had  been  alive 
now,  he  would  have  abhorred,  and  denounced  as  fatal  to  the  whole 
revelation  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  is  antii^dtiianisra.  .  .  .  The 
Philippian  jailor  to  whom  the  words  were  first  addressed  had  never  in 

VOL.  11  19 


290  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  remainder  of  the  story  is  soon  told.  When  the 
morning  came  there  came  quiet  reflection  with  it  as 
far  as  the  magistrates  were  concerned.  They  became 
conscious  of  their  illegal  conduct,  and  they  sent  their 
lictors  to  order  the  release  of  the  Apostles.  St.  Paul 
now  stood  upon  his  rights.  His  protest  had  been 
disregarded  by  the  mob.  He  now  claimed  his  rights 
as  a  Roman  citizen.  "  They  have  beaten  us  publicly, 
uncondemned  men,  that  are  Romans,  and  have  cast  us 
into  prison  ;  and  do  they  now  cast  us  out  privily  ? 
Nay,  verily;  but  let  them  come  themselves  and  bring 
us  out."  These  are  St.  Paul's  words,  and  they  are  brave, 
and  at  the  same  time  wise  words.  They  were  brave 
words  because  it  took  a  strong  man  to  send  back  such 
an  answer  to  magistrates  who  had  treated  him  so  out- 
rageously only  the  day  before.  They  were  wise  words, 
for  they  give  us  an  apostle's  interpretation  of  our  Lord's 
language  in  the  Sermon  upon  the  Mount  concerning 
the  non-resistance  of  evil,  and  show  us  that  in  St.  Paul's 
estimation  Christ's  law  did  not  bind  a  man  to  tolerate 
foul  injustice.  Such  toleration,  in  fact,  is  very  wrong  if 
it  can  be  helped;  because  it  is  simply  an  encouragement 
to  the  wicked  doers  to  treat  others  in  the  same  scanda- 
lous manner.     Toleration  of  outrage  and    injustice    is 


all  probability  heard  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  before.  .  .  .  '  Believe 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ '  then  meant  to  him,  '  Believe  on  Him  vs^hom 
we  are  now  about  to  set  forth  to  thee.'  And  they  there  and  then 
began  to  set  Him  forth,  for  they  spake  unto  him  'the  word  of  the 
Lord.'  .  .  .  This  word  must  have  shown  him  how — on  what  principle 
— he  could  exercise  faith  in  Him  so  as  to  be  saved.  But  did  they  call 
on  him  in  his  then  state  to  believe  anything  respecting  the  Church  and 
the  sacraments  of  Christ  ?  Unquestionably ;  for  St.  Paul  would  cer- 
tainly not  baptize  a  man  who  was  totally  ignorant  of  the  grace  of  union 
with  Christ  which  he  would  receive,  and  the  obligations  to  serve 
Christ  which  he  would  come  under,  by  being  baptized." 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.  1,2,  lo.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  291 

unfair  and  uncharitable  towards  others,  if  they  can  be 
lawfully  redressed  or  at  least  apologised  for.  It  is  a 
Christian  man's  duty  to  bring  public  evil-doers  and 
tyrants,  instruments  of  unrighteousness  like  these 
Duumvirs  of  Philippi,  to  their  senses,  not  for  his  own 
sake,  but  in  order  that  he  may  prevent  the  exercise  of 
similar  cruelties  against  the  weaker  brethren.  We 
may  be  sure  that  the  spirited  action  of  St,  Paul,  com- 
pelling these  provincial  magnates  to  humble  themselves 
before  the  despised  strangers,  must  have  had  a  very 
wholesome  effect  in  restraining  them  from  similar 
violence  during  the  rest  of  their  term  of  office. 

Such  was  St.  Paul's  stay  at  Philippi.  It  lasted  a 
considerable  time,  and  made  its  mark,  as  a  flourishing 
Church  was  established  there,  to  which  he  addressed 
an  Epistle  when  he  lay  the  first  time  a  captive  at 
Rome.  This  Epistle  naturally  forms  a  most  interesting 
commentary  on  the  notices  of  the  Philippian  visit  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  a  point  which  is  worked  out  at 
large  in  Bishop  Lightfoot's  Commentary  on  Philippians 
and  in  Paley's  Horce  Paulince.  The  careful  student  of 
Holy  Writ  will  find  that  St.  Paul's  letter  and  St.  Luke's 
narrative  when  compared  illuminate  one  another  in  a 
wondrous  manner.  We  cannot  afford  space  to  draw 
out  this  comparison  in  detail,  and  it  is  the  less  necessary 
to  do  so  as  Dr.  Lightfoot's  writings  are  so  generally 
accessible.  Let  us,  however,  notice  one  point  in  this 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  which  was  written  about 
the  same  time  (a  few  months  previously,  in  fact)  as 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  It  corroborates  the  Acts 
as  to  the  circumstances  under  which  the  Church  of 
Philippi  was  founded.  St.  Paul  in  the  Epistle  refers 
again  and  again  to  the  persecutions  and  afflictions  of 
the  Philippian  Church,  and  implies  that  he  was  a  fellow- 


292  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

sufferer  with  them.^  St.  Paul  dwells  on  this  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Epistle  in  words  whose  force  cannot 
be  understood  unless  we  grasp  this  fact.  In  the  sixth 
verse  of  the  first  chapter  he  expresses  himself  as, 
"  Confident  of  this  very  thing,  that  He  which  began 
a  good  work  in  you  will  perfect  it  until  the  day  of 
Jesus  Christ :  even  as  it  is  right  for  me  to  be  thus 
minded  on  behalf  of  you  all,  because  I  have  you  in 
my  heart,  inasmuch  as,  both  in  my  bonds  and  in  the 
defence  and  confirmation  of  the  gospel,  ye  all  are 
partakers  with  me  of  grace."  St.  Paul  speaks  of  the 
Philippians  as  personally  acquainted  with  chains  and 
sufferings  and  prison-houses  for  Christ's  sake,  and  re- 
gards these  things  as  a  proof  of  God's  grace  vouchsafed 
not  only  to  the  Apostle,  but  also  to  the  Philippians  ;  for 
St.  Paul  was  living  at  that  high  level  when  he  could 
view  bonds  and  trials  and  persecutions  as  marks  of  the 
Divine  love.  In  the  twenty-eighth  verse  of  the  same 
chapter  he  exhorts  them  to  be  in  no  wise  "  affrighted 
by  the  adversaries,"  and  in  the  next  two  describes  them 
as  persons  to  whom  "  it  hath  been  granted  in  the  behalf 
of  Christ,  not  only  to  believe  on  Him,  but  also  to  suffer 
in  His  behalf:  having  the  same  conflict  which  ye  saw 
in  me,  and  now  hear  to  be  in  me,"  words  which  can 
only  refer  to  the  violence  and  afflictions  which  they 
witnessed  as  practised  against  himself,  and  which  they 

'  Bishop  Lightfoot  (Philippians,  p.  57)  says  :  *'  St.  Paul's  first  visit 
to  Philippi  closed  abruptly  amid  the  storm  of  persecation.  It  was  not 
to  be  expected  that  where  the  life  of  the  teacher  had  been  so  seriously 
endangered,  the  scholars  would  escape  all  penalties.  The  Apostle  left 
behind  him  a  legacy  of  suffering  to  this  newly  born  Church.  This  is 
not  a  mere  conjecture;  the  affliction  of  the  Macedonian  Christians,  and 
of  the  Philippians  especially,  are  more  than  once  mentioned  in  St. 
Paul's  Epistles  (cf.  i  Thess.  ii.  2).  If  it  was  their  privilege  to  believe 
in  Christ,  it  was  equally  their  privilege  to  suffer  for  Ilim." 


xvi. 29-31  ;xvii.  1,2,  10.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  293 

were   now    themselves   suffering   in   turn.     While    to 
complete  St.    Paul's  references  we   notice  that  in  an 
Epistle   written  some  five  years   later   than  his   first 
visit  to  Philippi  he  expressly  refers  to  the  persecutions 
which  the  Philippian  Church  in  common  with  all  the 
Macedonian   Churches    seems    to    have    suffered    from 
the  very  beginning.     In  2  Cor.  viii.   I,  2,  he  writes  : 
"  Moreover,    brethren,    we   make   known    to   you    the 
grace  of  God  which  hath  been  given  in  the  Churches 
of  Macedonia  ;  how  that  in  much  proof  of  affliction  the 
abundance  of  their  joy  and  their  deep  poverty  abounded 
unto  the  riches  of  their  liberality."     Now  all  these  pas- 
sages put  together  confirm  for  us  what  the  Acts  expressly 
affirms,  that  from  the  very  outset  of  their  Christian  career 
the  Philippian  Church  had  endured  the  greatest  trials, 
and  experienced  a  fellowship  in  the  Apostle's  sufferings. 
And  surely  we  may  see  in  the  character  of  the  Philip- 
pian Epistle  something  eminently  characteristic  of  this 
experience  !     It  has  been  remarked  that  the  Philippian 
Epistle  is  the  only  Epistle  addressed  to  a  Church  in 
which  there  is  no  trace  of  blame  or  reproof.     Tempta- 
tion and  trial  and  chastisement  had  there  worked  their 
appointed  purpose.     The  Philippian  Church  had  been 
baptized    in    blood,    and   grounded    in    afflictions,   and 
purified  by  the  cleansing  fires  of  persecution,  and  con- 
sequently the  tried  Church  gathered  itself  closer  to  its 
Divine  Lord,   and  was  perfected  above  all   others  in 
His  likeness,    and    profited   above   all    others   in   the 
Divine  life.^  \ 

After  the  terrible  experience  of  Philippi  Paul  and 

'  Bishop  Lightfoot,  in  his  Commentary  on  Philippians,  I.e.,  dwells  on 
this  point :  "  The  unwavering  loyalty  of  his  Philippian  converts  is  the 
constant  solace  of  the  Apostle  in  his  manifold  trials,  the  one  bright  ray  of 
happiness  piercing  the  dark  clouds  which  gather  ever  thicker  about  the 


294  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Silas  passed  on  to  other  towns  of  the  same  province 
of  Macedonia.  The  Apostle,  however,  when  quitting 
Philippi  to  do  the  same  evangelistic  work,  breaking 
up  the  ground  in  other  towns  after  the  manner  of  a 
pioneer,  did  not  leave  the  Church  of  Philippi  devoid  of 
wisest  pastoral  care.  It  is  most  likely,  as  Dr.  Lightfoot 
points  out  in  the  Introduction  to  his  Commentary  on 
Philippians,  that  St.  Luke  was  left  behind  to  consoli- 
date the  work  which  had  been  thus  begun  by  such  a 
noble  company.  Then  Paul  and  Silas  and  Timotheus 
proceeded  to  Thessalonica,  one  hundred  miles  west,  the 
capital  of  the  province,  where  the  proconsul  resided, 
and  where  was  a  considerable  Jewish  population,  as 
we  see,  not  only  from  the  fact  that  a  synagogue  is 
expressly  said  to  have  existed  there,  but  also  because 
the  Jews  were  able  to  excite  the  city  pagan  mob  against 
the  Apostles  and  drag  them  before  the  local  magistrates.^ 
St.  Paul  at  Philippi  had  for  the  first  time  experienced 
a  purely  pagan  persecution.  Fie  had  indeed  previously 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  heathen  at  Lystra,  but  they 
were   urged   on  by  the  Jews.     At  Philippi  he  gained 

evening  of  his  life.  They  are  his  'joy  and  crown,  his  brethren  beloved 
and  eagerly  desired.'  From  them  alone  he  consents  to  receive  alms 
for  the  relief  of  his  personal  wants.  To  them  alone  he  writes  in 
language  unclouded  by  any  shadow  of  displeasure  or  disappoint- 
ment." 

'  Thessalonica  is  to  this  day  the  abode  of  a  large  Jewish  population. 
Tozer,  in  his  Highlands  of  Ttirkey,  vol.  i.,  p.  146,  says  :  "  Of  the  sixty 
thousand  inhabitants  of  Salonica  two-thirds  are  Jews,  the  rest  being 
Turks  and  Greeks.  .  .  .  From  early  times  the  Hebrew  race  seem  to 
have  been  attracted-  by  the  commercial  advantages  of  Salonica.  Thus 
when  St.  Paul  preached  there  he  found  a  considerable  Jewish  com- 
munity. ...  A  large  number  of  the  Salonica  Jews  are  rich  merchants, 
and  a  great  part  of  the  wealth  of  the  place  is  in  their  hands."  Mr. 
Lewin,  in  his  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  p.  222,  gives  a  table  of  the  distances  all 
along  St.  Paul's  route. 


xvi.29-3i;xvii.  1,2,  10.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  295 

his  first  glimpse  of  that  long  vista  of  purely  Gentile 
persecution  through  which  the  Church  had  to  pass  till 
Christianity  seated  itself  in  the  person  of  Constantine 
on  the  throne  of  the  Caesars.  But  as  soon  as  he  got 
to  Thessalonica  he  again  experienced  the  undying 
hostility  of  his  Jewish  fellow-countrymen  using  for  their 
wicked  purposes  the  baser  portion  of  the  city  rabble.^ 
St.  Paul  remained  three  weeks  in  Thessalonica  teaching 
privately  and  pubHcly  the  gospel  message,  without  ex- 
periencing any  Jewish  opposition.  It  is  an  interesting 
fact  that  to  this  day  St.  Paul's  visit  to  Thessalonica  is 
remembered,  and  in  one  of  the  local  mosques,  which  was 
formerly  the  Church  of  Sancta  Sophia,  a  marble  pulpit 
is  shown,  said  to  have  been  the  very  one  occupied  by 
the  Apostle,  while  in  the  surrounding  plains  trees  and 
groves  are  pointed  out  as  marking  spots  where  he 
tarried  for  a  time.  The  Jews  were  at  last,  however, 
roused  to  opposition,  possibly  because  of  St.  Paul's 
success  among  the  Gentiles,  who  received  his  doctrines 
with  such  avidity  that  there  believed  "  of  the  devout 
Greeks  a  great  multitude,  and  of  the  chief  women  not 
a  few."  In  Thessalonica,  as  elsewhere,  the  spirit  of 
religious  selfishness,  desiring  to  have  gospel  promises 
and  a  Messiah  all  to  themselves,  was  the  ruin  of  the 
Jewish  people.  The  Jews  therefore,  assisted  by  the 
pagans,  assaulted  the  residence  of  Jason,  with  whom 
St.  Paul  and  his  fnends  were  staying.  They  missed 
the  Apostles  themselves,  but  they  seized  Jason  and 
some  of  the  apostolic  band,  or  at  least  some  of  their 
converts  whom  they  found  in  Jason's  house,  and 
brought  them  before  the  town  magistrates,  who,  acting 

'  Mr.  Findlay,  in  a  little  -".vork  lately  published,  The  Epistles  of  Paul 
the  Apostle,  has  many  valuable  observations  on  the  subject  of  the  Jewish 
opposition  experienced  by  the  Apostle  at  Thessalonica. 


THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


under  the  eye  of  the  resident  proconsul,  did  not  lend 
themselves  to  any  irregular  proceedings  like  the  Philip- 
pian  praetors.  A  charge  of  treason  was  formally  brought 
against  the  prisoners  :  "  These  all  act  contrary  to  the 
decrees  of  Caesar,  saying  that  there  is  another  King, 
one  Jesus  "  ;  in  the  words  of  which  charge  we  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  leading  topic  on  which  the  Apostles 
insisted.  Jesus  Christ,  the  crucified,  risen,  glorified 
King  and  Head  of  His  people,  was  the  great  subject 
of  St.  Paul's  teaching  as  it  struck  the  heathen.  The 
Thessalonian  magistrates  acted  very  fairly.  They 
entered  the  charge  which  was  a  serious  one  in  the  eye 
of  Roman  law.  Bail  was  then  taken  for  the  accused  and 
they  were  set  free.  The  Apostles,  however,  escaped 
arrest,  and  the  local  brethren  determined  that  they 
should  incur  no  danger ;  so  while  the  accused  remained 
to  stand  their  trial,  Paul  and  Silas  and  Timotheus  were 
despatched  to  Beroea,  where  they  were  for  a  time  wel- 
comed, and  free  discussion  permitted  in  the  synagogue 
concerning  the  truths  taught  by  the  Evangelists.  After 
a  time,  however,  tidings  having  reached  Thessalonica, 
agents  were  despatched  to  Beroea,  who  stirring  up 
the  Jewish  residents,  St.  Paul  was  despatched  in 
charge  of  some  trusty  messengers  who  guided  the  steps 
of  the  hunted  servant  of  God  to  the  city  of  Athens. 
We  see  the  physical  infirmities  of  St.  Paul,  the  difficul- 
ties he  had  to  contend  with,  hinted  at  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  verses  of  the  seventeenth  chapter.  "Then 
immediately  the  brethren  sent  forth  Paul,"  and  "  They 
that  conducted  Paul  brought  him  to  Athens,"  words 
which  give  us  a  glimpse  of  his  fearfully  defective 
eyesight.  His  enemies  might  be  pressing  upon  him 
and  danger  might  be  imminent,  but  he  could  make  no 
unaided  effort  to  save  himself,     He  depended  upon  the 


xvi. 29-31 ;  xvii.  1,2,  lo.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  297 

kindly  help  of  others  that  he  might  escape  his  untiring 
foes  and  find  his  way  to  a  place  of  safety. 

Thus  ended  St,  Paul's  first  visit  to  Thessalonica  so 
far  as  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  concerned ;  but  we 
have  interesting  light  thrown  upon  it  from  an  Epistle 
which  St.  Paul  himself  wrote  to  the  Thessalonians 
soon  after  his  departure  from  amongst  them.  A 
comparison  of  First  Thessalonians  with  the  text  of 
the  Acts  will  furnish  the  careful  student  with  much 
information  concerning  the  circumstances  of  that 
notable  visit,  just  as  we  have  seen  that  the  text  of  the 
Philippian  Epistle  throws  light  upon  his  doings  at 
Philippi.  The  Thessalonian  Epistles  are  more  helpful 
even  than  the  Philippians  in  this  respect,  because  they 
were  written  only  a  few  months  after  St.  Paul's  visit 
to  Thessalonica,  while  years  elapsed,  eight  or  ten  at 
least,  before  the  Philippian  Epistle  was  indited.  First 
Thessalonians  shows  us,  for  instance,  that  St.  Paul's 
visit  to  Thessalonica  lasted  a  considerable  time.  In 
the  Acts  we  read  of  his  discussing  in  the  synagogue 
three  Sabbath  days,  and  then  it  would  appear  as 
if  the  riot  was  raised  which  drove  him  to  Beroea  and 
Athens.  The  impression  left  on  our  minds  by  St. 
Luke's  narrative  is  that  St.  Paul's  labours  were  almost 
entirely  concentrated  upon  the  Jews  in  Thessalonica, 
and  that  he  bestowed  very  little  attention  indeed  upon 
the  pagans.  The  Epistle  corrects  this  impression. 
When  we  read  the  first  chapter  of  First  Thessa- 
lonians we  see  that  it  was  almost  altogether  a  church 
of  converted  idolaters,  not  of  converted  Jews.  St. 
Paul  speaks  of  the  Thessalonians  as  having  turned 
from  idols  to  serve  the  living  God ;  he  refers  to  the 
instructions  on  various  points  like  the  resuiTection, 
the  ascension,    the    second   coming   of  Christ,    which 


298  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

he  had  imparted,  and  describes  their  faith  and  works 
as  celebrated  throughout  all  Macedonia  and  Achaia. 
A  large  and  flourishing  church  like  that,  composed 
of  former  pagans,  could  not  have  been  founded  in 
the  course  of  three  weeks,  during  which  time  St.  Paul's 
attention  was  principally  bestowed  on  the  Jewish 
residents.  Then  too,  when  we  turn  to  Philippians  iv.  16, 
we  find  that  St.  Paul  stayed  long  enough  in  Thessa- 
lonica  to  receive  no  less  than  two  remittances  of  money 
from  the  brethren  at  PhiHppi  to  sustain  himself  and 
his  brethren.  His  whole  attention  too  was  not 
bestowed  upon  mission  work ;  he  spent  his  days  and 
nights  in  manual  labour.  In  the  ninth  verse  of  the 
second  chapter  of  First  Thessalonians  he  reminds 
them  of  the  fact  that  he  supported  himself  in  their 
cit}'',  "  For  ye  remember,  brethren,  our  labour  and 
travail:  working  night  and  day,  that  we  might  not 
burden  any  of  you,  we  preached  unto  you  the  gospel 
of  God."  When  we  realise  these  things  we  shall 
feel  that  the  Apostle  must  have  spent  at  least  a 
couple  of  months  in  Thessalonica.  It  was  perhaps 
his  tremendous  success  among  the  heathen  which  so 
stirred  up  the  passions  of  the  town  mob  as  enabled 
the  Jews  to  instigate  them  to  raise  the  riot,  they  them- 
selves keeping  all  the  while  in  the  background.  St. 
Paul,  in  First  Thessalonians,  describes  the  riots  raised 
against  the  Christians  as  being  the  immediate  work  of 
the  pagans :  "  Ye,  brethren,  became  imitators  of  the 
Churches  of  God  which  are  in  Judaea  in  Christ  Jesus. 
For  ye  also  suffered  the  same  things  of  your  own 
countrymen  as  they  did  of  the  Jews";  a  statement 
which  is  quite  consistent  with  the  theory  that  the  per- 
secution was  originally  inspired  by  ihe  Jews.  But  we 
cannot  further  pursue  this  interesting  line  of  inquiry 


xvi. 29-31  ;xvii.  1,2,  lo.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  MACEDONIA.  299 

which  has  been  thoroughly  worked  out  by  Mr.  Lewin 
in  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  by  Conybeare  and  Howson  in  ch.  ix., 
and  by  Archdeacon  Farrar,  as  well  as  by  Dr.  Salmon 
in  his  Introdviclion  to  the  New  Testament,  ch.  xx. 
The  careful  student  will  find  in  all  these  works  most 
interesting  light  reflected  back  upon  the  Acts  from 
the  apostolic  letters,  and  will  see  how  thoroughly  the 
Epistles,  which  were  much  the  earlier  documents, 
confirm  the  independent  account  of  St.  Luke,  writing 
at  a  subsequent  period. 

Before  we  terminate  this  chapter  we  desire  to  call 
attention  to  one  other  point  where  the  investigations 
of  modern  travel  have  helped  to  illustrate  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  It  has  been  the 
contention  of  the  rationahstic  party  that  the  Acts  was 
a  composition  of  the  second  century,  worked  up  by  a 
clever  forger  out  of  the  materials  at  his  command. 
There  are  various  lines  of  proof  by  which  this  theory 
can  be  refuted,  but  none  appeal  so  forcibly  to  ordinary 
men  as  the  minute  accuracy  which  marks  it  when 
describing  the  towns  of  Asia  Minor  and  Macedonia. 
Macedonia  is  a  notable  case.  We  have  already 
pointed  out  how  the  Acts  give  their  proper  title  to  the 
magistrates  of  Philippi  and  recognise  its  peculiar 
constitution  as  a  colony.  Thessalonica  forms  an 
interesting  contrast  to  Philippi.  Thessalonica  was 
a  free  city,  like  Antioch  in  Syria,  Tarsus,  and  Athens, 
and  therefore,  though  the  residence  of  the  proconsul 
who  ruled  the  province  of  Macedonia,  was  governed  by 
its  own  ancient  magistrates  and  its  own  ancient  laws, 
without  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the  proconsul. 
St.  Luke  makes  a  marked  distinction  between  Philippi 
and  Thessalonica.  At  Philippi  the  Apostles  were  brought 
before  the  praetors,  at  Thessalonica  they  were  brought 


300  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

before  the  politarchs,^  a  title  strange  to  classical 
antiquity,  but  which  has  been  found  upon  a  triumphal 
arch  which  existed  till  a  few  years  ago  across  the 
main  street  of  the  modern  city  of  Thessalonica.  That 
arch  has  now  disappeared ;  but  the  fragments  con- 
taining the  inscription  were  fortunately  preserved  and 
have  been  now  placed  in  the  British  Museum,  where 
they  form  a  precious  relic  proving  the  genuineness  of 
the  sacred  narrative. 

'  This  case  of  Thessalonica  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  Bishop 
Lightfoot's  statement : — "The  government  of  the  Roman  provinces  at 
this  time  was  peculiarly  dangerous  ground  for  the  romance-writer 
to  venture  upon  "  (Essays  on  Supernatural  Religion,  p.  291).  If  the 
Roman  provinces  were  a  dangerous  ground  for  a  romance-writer,  such 
as  some  critics  would  make  the  author  of  the  Acts,  the  government  of 
the  large  Grseco-Roman  towns  and  cities  was  still  more  dangerous,  as 
scarcely  any  two  successive  ones  were  alike.  Thessalonica  is  a  good 
instance  of  this.  St.  Luke  calls  the  magistrates  politarchs,  and  the 
triumphal  arch  at  Thessalonica  calls  them  politarchs ;  a  title  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  very  rare  one,  as  only  one  other  instance  of  its 
occurrence  has  been  discovered.  Monastir,  in  the  north-west  ot  Mace- 
donia, is  an  important  town,  and  there  an  inscription  belonging  to  the 
ancient  Deuriopus,  twelve  miles  distant,  was  found  more  than  twenty 
years  ago  containing  the  same  title,  politarchs.  Surely  the  stones  out 
of  the  walls  of  Thessalonica  and  of  Monastir  cry  out  in  defence  of 
St.  Luke's  accuracy  !  See  Mr.  Tozer's  HigJilands  of  Ttp-key,  vol.  i., 
p.  145,  and  vol.  ii.,  p.  358,  Append.  B  ;  Bceckh's  Corp.  Ins.  Gt-cec, 
No.  1967  ;  articles  by  the  Abbe  Belley  in  the  Acad,  des  Inscripi., 
xxxviii.,  p.  125,  and  by  Mr.  Vaux  in  the  Trans,  of  Roy.  Soc.  of 
Literature,  vol.  viii.,  new  series. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE. 

"  Now  while  Paul  waited  for  thetn  at  Athens,  his  spirit  was  provoked 
within  him,  as  he  beheld  the  city  full  of  idols.  So  he  reasoned  in  the 
synagogue  with  the  Jews  and  the  devout  persons,  and  in  the  market- 
place every  day  with  them  that  met  with  him.  And  certain  also  of  the 
Epicurean  and  Stoic  philosophers  encountered  him.  And  some  said, 
What  would  this  babbler  say?  other  some,  He  seemeth  to  be  a  setter 
forth  of  strange  gods  :  because  he  preached  Jesus  and  the  resurrection." 
— Acts  xvii.  16-18. 

"After  these  things  Paul  departed  from  Athens,  and  came  to  Corinth." 
— Acts  xviii.  i. 

THERE  are  parallelisms  in  history  which  are  very 
striking,  and  yet  these  parallelisms  can  be  easily 
explained.  The  stress  and  strain  of  difficulties  acting 
upon  large  masses  of  men  evolve  and  call  forth  similar 
types  of  character,  and  demand  the  exercise  of  similar 
powers.  St.  Paul  and  St.  Athanasius  are  illustrations 
of  this  statement.  They  were  both  little  men,  both 
enthusiastic  in  their  views,  both  pursued  all  their  lives 
long  with  bitter  hostility,  and  both  had  experience  of 
the  most  marvellous  and  hairbreadth  escapes.  If  any 
reader  will  take  up  Dean  Stanley's  History  of  the  Eastern 
Church,  and  read  the  account  given  of  St.  Athanasius  in 
the  seventh  chapter  of  that  work,  he  will  be  strikingly 
reminded  of  St.  Paul  in  these  various  aspects,  but 
specially  in  the  matter  of  his  wondrous  escapes  from 
his  deadly  enemies,  which  were  so  numerous  that  at 

301 


302  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

last  they  came  to  regard  Athanasius  as  a  magician  who 
eluded  their  designs  by  the  help  of  his  familiar  spirits. 
It  was  much  the  same  with  St.  Paul.  Hairbreadth 
escapes  were  his  daily  experience,  as  he  himself  points 
out  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  his  Second  Epistle  to 
Corinth.  He  there  enumerates  a  few  of  them,  but 
quite  omits  his  escapes  from  Jerusalem,  from  the 
Pisidian  Antioch,  from  Iconium,  Lystra,  Thessalonica, 
and  last  of  all  from  Beroea,  whence  he  was  driven  by 
the  renewed  machinations  of  the  Thessalonian  Jews, 
who  found  out  after  a  time  whither  the  object  of 
their  hatred  had  fled.  Paul's  ministry  at  Beroea  was 
not  fruitless,  short  as  it  may  have  been.  He  established 
a  Church  there  which  took  good  care  of  the  precious 
life  entrusted  to  its  keeping,  and  therefore  as  soon  as 
the  deputies  of  the  Thessalonian  synagogue  came  to 
Beroea  and  began  to  work  upon  the  Jews  of  the  local 
synagogue,  as  well  as  upon  the  pagan  mob  of  the  town, 
the  Beroean  disciples  took  Paul,  who  was  the  special 
object  of  Jewish  hatred,  and  despatched  him  down  to 
the  sea-coast,  some  twenty  miles  distant,  in  charge  of 
certain  trusty  messengers,  while  Silas  remained  behind, 
in  temporary  concealment  doubtless,  in  order  that  he 
might  consolidate  the  Church.^  Here  we  get  a  hint, 
a  passing  glimpse  of  St.  Paul's  infirmity.  He  was  de- 
spatched in  charge  of  trusty  messengers,  I  have  said, 
who  were  to  show  him  the  way.  "  They  that  conducted 
Paul  brought  him  as  far  as  Athens."  His  ophthalmia, 
perhaps,  had  become  specially  bad  owing  to  the  rough 

'  It  is  well,  perhaps,  to  bear  in  mind  the  distances  which  separate 
the  various  stages  of  St.  Paul's  progress  through  Macedonia.  Thessa- 
lonica was  about  a  hundred  miles  from  Philippi,  Beroea  fifty  from 
Thessalonica,  and  the  sea-coast  of  the  Thermaic  Gulf,  or  the  Gulf 
of  Salonica,  as  it  is  now  called,  some  twenty  miles  from  Beroea. 


xvii.  i6-i8;xviii.  I.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  GREECE.  303 

usage  he  had  experienced,  and  so  he  could  not  escape 
all  solitary  and  alone  as  he  did  in  earlier  years  from 
Damascus,  and  therefore  guides  were  necessary  who 
should  conduct  him  "as  far  as  the  sea,"  and  then,  when 
they  had  got  that  far,  they  did  not  leave  him  alone. 
They  embarked  in  the  ship  with  him,  and,  sailing  to 
Athens,  deposited  him  safely  in  a  lodging.  The  journey 
was  by  sea,  not  by  land,  because  a  sea  journey  was 
necessarily  much  easier  for  the  sickly  and  weary 
Apostle  than  the  land  route  would  have  been,  offering 
too  a  much  surer  escape  from  the  dangers  of  pursuit. 

The  voyage  was  an  easy  one,  and  not  too  prolonged. 
The  boat  or  ship  in  which  the  Apostle  was  embarked 
passed  through  splendid  scenery.  On  his  right  hand,  as 
he  steered  for  the  south,  was  the  magnificent  mountain 
of  Olym.pus,  the  fabled  abode  of  the  gods,  rising  a  clear 
ten  thousand  feet  into  the  region  of  perpetual  snow, 
while  on  his  left  was  Mount  Athos,  upon  which  he 
had  been  looking  ever  since  the  day  that  he  left  Troas. 
But  the  Apostle  had  no  eye  for  the  scenery,  nor  had 
St.  Luke  a  word  to  bestow  upon  its  description,  though 
he  often  passed  through  it,  absorbed  as  they  were  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  awful  realities  of  a  world 
unseen.  The  sea  voyage  from  the  place  where  St.  Paul 
embarked  till  he  came  to  Phalerum,  the  port  of  Athens, 
where  he  landed,  lasted  perhaps  three  or  four  days, 
and  covered  about  two  hundred  miles,  being  somewhat 
similar  in  distance,  scenery,  and  surroundings  to  the 
voyage  from  Glasgow  to  Dublin  or  Bristol,  land  in  both 
cases  being  in  sight  all  the  time  and  splendid  mountain 
ranges  bounding  the  views  on  either  side.^ 

'  The  best  description  which  I  know  of  this  neighbourhood  is  that 
given  by  Mr.  Tozer  in  his  Highlands  of  Turkey,  vol.  ii.,  p.  8.  St.  Paul 
embarked  at  the  head  of  the  long,  narrow  gulf,  called  anciently  the 


304  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

St.  Paul  landed  about  November  ist,  51,  at  Phalerum, 
one  of  the  two  ports  of  ancient  Athens,  the  Piraeus 
being  the  other,  and  thence  his  uncertain  steps  were 
guided  to  the  city  itself,  where  he  was  left  alone  in 
some  lodging.  The  Beroean  Christians  to  whom  he 
was  entrusted  returned  perhaps  in  the  same  vessel 
in  which  they  had  previously  travelled,  as  the  winter 
season,  when  navigation  largely  ceased,  was  now  fast 
advancing,  bearing  with  them  a  message  to  Timothy  and 
Silas  to  come  as  rapidly  as  possible  to  his  assistance, 
the  Apostle  being  practically  helpless  when  deprived 
of  his  trusted  friends.  At  Athens  St.  Paul  for  a  time 
moved  about  examining  the  city  for  himself,  a  process 
which  soon  roused  him  to  action  and  brought  matters 
to  a  crisis.  St.  Paul  was  well  used  to  pagan  towns 
and  the  sights  with  which  they  were  filled.  From  his 
earliest  youth  in  Tarsus  idolatry  and  its  abominations 
must  have  been  a  pain  and  grief  to  him  ;  but  Athens 
he  found  to  exceed  them  all,  so  that  "his  spirit  was 
provoked  within  him  as  he  beheld  the  city  full  of  idols." 
We  have  in  ancient  Greek  literature  the  most  inter- 
esting confirmation  of  the  statement  here  made  by 
St.  Luke.  We  still  possess  a  descriptive  account  of 
Greece   written   by   a   chatty   Greek   traveller    named 

Thermaic  Gulf,  leading  up  to  the  city  of  Thessalonica.  The  Apostle 
must  have  sailed  in  a  mere  fishing  smack  or  good-sized  boat,  as  the  iron- 
bound  western  coast  of  this  gulf  is  devoid  of  harbours  sufficient  for  large 
ships.  Mr.  Tozer  himself  sailed  from  Thessalonica  in  such  a  vessel, 
see  I.e.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  4  :  "  We  chartered  a  vessel  to  convey  us  dow^n  the 
bay,  a  six-oared  Smyrna  caique,  quite  elegant  in  her  appointments  as 
compared  with  the  ordinary  lumbering  market  boats  and  coasters  of 
these  seas,  and  a  tight  little  craft  withal,  for  though  not  more  than  six 
feet  in  width,  and  without  a  deck,  she  had  made  a  voyage  to  the  Crimea 
during  the  war."  Cicero,  even  when  going  as  proconsul  into  Asia 
travelled  in  the  ' '  undecked  vessel  of  the  Rhodians, "  of  whose  weakness 
and  slowness  he  complains  :  see  his  letters  to  Atticus,  v.  12  and  13. 


xvii.  i6-i8;xviii.  I.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  305 

Pausanias,  in  the  days  of  the  Antonines,  that  is,  less 
than  a  hundred  years  after  St,  Paul's  visit,  and  when 
Athens  was  practically  the  same  as  in  the  Apostle's  day. 
Pausanias  enters  into  the  greatest  details  about  Athens, 
describing  the  statues  of  gods  and  heroes,  the  temples, 
the  worship,  the  customs  of  the  people,  bestowing  the 
first  thirty  chapters  of  his  first  book  upon  Athens 
alone.  Pausanias's  Description  of  Greece'^  is  most  in- 
teresting to  every  one  because  he  saw  Athens  in  the 
height  of  its  literary  glory  and  architectural  splendour, 
and  it  is  specially  interesting  to  the  Bible  student  be- 
cause it  amply  confirms  and  illustrates  the  details  of 
St.  Paul's  visit. 

Thus  we  are  told  in  words  just  quoted  that  St.  Paul 
found  "the  city  full  of  idols,"  and  this  provoked  his 
spirit  over  and  above  the  usual  provocation  he  received 
wherever  he  found  dead  "idols  like  these  usurping  the 
place  rightfully  belonging  to  the  Lord  of  the  universe. 
Now  let  us  take  up  Pausanias,  and  what  does  he  tell 
us  ?  In  his  first  chapter  he  tells  how  the  ports  of 
Athens  were  crowded  on  every  side  with  temples,  and 
adorned  with  statues  of  gold  and  silver.  Phalerum, 
the  port  where  Paul  landed,  had  temples  of  Demeter, 
of  Athene,  of  Zeus,  and  "  altars  of  gods  unknown,"  of 
which  we  shall  presently  speak.  Then  we  can  peruse 
chapter  after  chapter  crowded  with  descriptions  of 
statues  and  temples,  till  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  we 
read  how  in  their  pantheistic  enthusiasm  they  idolised 
the  most  impalpable  of  things  :  "  The  Athenians  have 
in  the  market-place,  among  other  things  not  uni- 
versally notable,  an  altar  of  Mercy,  to  whom,  though 

'  This  important  work  may  be  most  easily'  consulted  in  Shilleto's 
translation, .published  in  Bohn's  Classical  Library,  Bell  &  Sons,  London, 
1886. 

VOL.  II.  20 


3o6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

most  useful  of  all  the  gods  to  the  life  of  man  and  its 
vicissitudes,  the  Athenians  alone  of  all  the  Greeks 
assign  honours.  And  not  only  is  philanthropy  more 
regarded  among  them,  but  they  also  exhibit  more  piety 
to  the  gods  than  others  ;  for  they  have  also  an  altar 
to  Shame  and  Rumour  and  Energy.  And  it  is  clear 
that  those  people  who  have  a  larger  share  of  piety 
than  others  have  also  a  larger  share  of  good  for- 
tune." While  again,  in  chapter  xxiv.,  dwelling  upon 
the  statues  of  Hercules  and  Athene,  Pausanias  re- 
marks, "  I  have  said  before  that  the  Athenians,  more 
than  any  other  Greeks,  have  a  zeal  for  religion." 
Athens  was,  at  the  time  of  St. .  Paul's  visit,  the  leading 
university  of  the  world,  and  university  life  then  was 
permeated  with  the  spirit  of  paganism,  the  lovers  of 
philosophy  and  science  delighting  to  adorn  Athens 
with  temples  and  statues  and  endowments  as  expres- 
sions of  the  gratitude  they  felt  for  the  culture  which 
they  had  there  gained.^  These  things  had,  however,  no 
charm  for  the  Apostle  Paul.  Some  moderns,  viewing 
him  from  an  unsympathetic  point  of  view,  would 
describe  him  in  their  pecuHar  language  as  a  mere 
Philistine  in  spirit,  unable  to  recognise  the  material 
beauty  and  glory  which  lay  around.  And  this  is  true. 
The  beauty  which  the  architect  and  the  sculptor  would 
admire  was  for  the  Apostle  to  a  large  extent  non- 
existent, owing  to  his  defective  eyesight ;  but  even 
when  recognised  it  was  an  object  rather  of  dislike  and 
of  abhorrence  than  of  admiration  and  pleasure,  because 

'  The  Emperor  Hadrian,  for  instance,  adorned  Athens  with  expensive 
buildings  and  libraries,  and  enriched  it  with  endowments.  See  Duhr's 
work,  p.  44,  on  the  [ourneys  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  published  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Archreological  Society  of  Vienna ;  and  cf.  Pausanias, 
i.  i8. 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  307 

the  Apostle  saw  deeper  than  the  man  of  mere  super- 
ficial culture  and  aesthetic  taste.  The  Apostle  saw 
these  idols  and  the  temples  consecrated  to  their  use 
from  the  moral  and  spiritual  standpoint,  and  viewed 
them  therefore  as  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  an 
inward  festering  corruption  and  rottenness,  the  more 
beautiful  perhaps  because  of  the  more  awful  decay 
which  lay  beneath. 

The  glimpses  which  St.  Paul  got  of  Athens  as  he 
wandered  about  roused  his  spirit  and  quickened  him  to 
action.  He  followed  his  usual  course  therefore.  He 
first  sought  his  own  countrymen  the  Jews.  There  was 
a  colony  of  Jews  at  Athens,  as  we  know  from  inde- 
pendent sources.  Philo  was  a  Jew  the  authenticity  of 
whose  writings,  at  least  in  great  part,  has  never  been 
questioned.  He  lived  at  P.  lexandria  at  this  very  period, 
and  was  sent,  about  twelve  years  earlier,  as  an  ambas- 
sador to  Rome  to  protest  against  the  cruel  persecutions 
to  which  the  Alexandrian  Jews  had  been  subjected  at 
the  time  when  Caligula  made  the  attempt  to  erect  his 
statue  at  Jerusalem,  of  which  we  have  spoken  in  a 
previous  chapter.  He  wrote  an  account  of  his  journey 
to  Rome  and  his  treatment  by  the  Emperor,  which  is 
called  Legatio  ad  Caiwn,  and  in  it  he  mentions  Athens 
as  one  of  the  cities  where  a  considerable  Jewish  colony 
existed.^     We   know   practically  nothing    more    about 


'  Any  one  wishing  to  consult  the  writings  of  this  contemporary  of 
St.  Paul  can  find  Philo's  works  translated  into  English  in  4  vols,  in 
Bohn's  Library  of  Ecclesiastical  Antiquity.  A  comparison  of  St.  Paul's 
writings  with  those  of  Philo  will  show  us  the  wondrous  superiority  of 
those  of  the  Christian  Apostle,  owing  to  his  inspiration  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  .  St.  Paul's  writings  are  a  perpetual  feast  of  fat  things  nourish- 
ing the  soul  unto  everlasting  life.  The  writings  of  Philo  are  curious 
and  interesting,  but  no  one  would  dream  of  taking  them  as  a  spiritual 
guide  of  life. 


3o8  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

this  Jewish  colony  save  what  we  are  told  here  by  St. 
Luke,  that  it  was  large  enough  to  have  a  synagogue, 
not    a    mere   oratory   like    the    Philippian   Jews.^       It 
cannot,  however,  have  been  a  very  large  one.     Athens 
was  not  a  seat  of  any  considerable  trade,  and  therefore 
had  no  such  attractions  for  the  Jews  as  either  Thes- 
salonica  or  Corinth  ;  while  its  abounding  idolatry  and 
its  countless  images  would  be  repellant  to  their  feelings. 
Modern  investigations  have,  indeed,  brought  to  light  a 
few  ancient  inscriptions  testifying  to  the  presence  of 
Jews  at  Athens  in  these  earlier  ages  ;   but  otherwise 
we  know  nothing  about  them.     The  synagogue  seems 
to  have  imbibed  a  good  deal  of  the  same  easy-going 
contemptuously  tolerant  spirit  with  which    the  whole 
atmosphere  of  Athens  was  infected.     Jews  and  pagans 
alike  listened  to   St.   Paul,   and   then  turned  away  to 
their  own  pursuits.     In  a  city  where  every  religion  was 
represented,  and  every  religion  discussed  and  laughed 
at,  how  could  any  one  be  very  much  in  earnest  ?     St. 
Paul  then  turned  from  the  Jews  to  the  Gentiles.     He 
frequented  the  market-place,  a  well-known  spot,  near  to 
the  favourite  meeting-place  of  the  Stoic  philosophers.* 
There    St.    Paul    entered    into    discussion    with    indi- 
viduals or  with  groups  as  they  presented  themselves. 

'  The  Athenians  had  for  a  long  time  previous  to  St.  Paul's  visit  some 
commercial  relations  with  the  Jewish  nation.  Josephus,  Antiqq., 
XIV.  8,  tells  us  how  they  erected  a  brass  statue  of  the  high  priest 
Hyrcanus,  as  an  expression  of  their  good  will  to  the  Jewish  nation. 
This  was  a  hundred  years  before  St.  Paul's  visit.  Bayet  discovered 
early  Jewish  inscriptions  among  the  Athenian  cemeteries.  See  his 
De  Titulis  Attica  Christianis,  pp.  122-24,  of  which  we  treat  in  a  note 
infra. 

"^  Pausanias,  i.  15,  gives  a  description  of  the  Porch  or  Painted 
Chamber,  the  Stoa  Poecile,  whence  the  Stoics  derived  their  name, 
showing  that  it  was  close  to  the  Agora,  or  market-place,  where  Paul 
disputed. 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  GREECE.  309 

The  philosophers  soon  took  notice  of  the  new-comer. 
His    manner,    terribly   in    earnest,    would    soon    have 
secured   attention  in   any   society,   and  much  more  in 
Athens,  where   whole-souled   and   intense  enthusiasm 
was  the  one  intellectual  quality  which  was  completely 
wanting.      For  who    but    a  man   that   had    heard    the 
voice  of  God  and  had  seen  the  vision  of  the  Almighty 
could    be    in    earnest   in    a    city  where  residents  and 
strangers  sojourning  there  all  alike  spent  their  time  in 
nothing  else  but  either  to    tell  or  to  hear  some  new 
thing  ?     The  philosophers  and  Stoics  and  Epicureans 
alike   were   attracted    by   St.    Paul's   manner.      They 
listened  to  him    as    he    discoursed    of  Jesus    and    the 
Resurrection,    the    two    topics    which    absorbed    him. 
They  mistook  his  meaning  in  a  manner  very  natural  to 
the  place,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  us.     In  Athens 
the  popular  worship  was  thoroughly  Pantheistic.    Every 
desire,  passion,  infirmity  even  of  human  nature  was 
deified  and  adored,  and  therefore,  as  we  have  already 
pointed  out,  Pity  and  Shame  and  Energy  and  Rumour, 
the  last  indeed  the  most  fitting  and  significant  of  them 
all  for  a  people  who  simply  lived  to  talk,  found  spirits 
willing  to  prostrate  themselves  in  their  service  and  altars 
dedicated  to  their  honour.     The  philosophers  heard  this 
new  Jewish  teacher  proclaiming  the  virtues  and  bless- 
ings of  Jesus  and  the  Resurrection,  and  they  concluded 
Jesus  to  be  one  divinity  and  the  Resurrection  another 
divinity,    lately    imported    from    the   mysterious    East. 
The  philosophers  were  the  aristocracy  of  the  Athenian 
city,   reverenced   as   the   University   professors   in    a 
German  or  Scotch  town,  and  they  at  once  brought  the 
new-comer  before  the  court  of  Areopagus,  the  highest 
in  Athens,  charged,  as  in  the  time  of  Socrates,  with 
the   duty   of  supervising   the   affairs   of  the   national 


3IO  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

religion,  and  punishing  all  attacks  and  innovations 
thereon.  The  Apostle  was  led  up  the  steps  or  stairs 
which  still  remain,  the  judges  took  their  places  on  the 
rock-hewn  benches,  St.  Paul  was  placed  upon  the  de- 
fendant's stone,  called,  as  Pausanias  tells  us,  the  Stone 
of  Impudence,  and  then  the  trial  began. 

The  Athenian  philosophers  were  cultured,  and  they 
were  polite.  They  demand,  therefore,  in  bland  tones, 
"May  we  know  what  this  new  teaching  is,  which  is 
spoken  by  thee  ?  For  thou  bringest  certain  strange 
things  to  our  ears ;  we  would  know,  therefore,  what 
these  things  mean."  And  now  St.  Paul  has  got  his 
chance  of  a  listening  audience.  He  has  come  across  a 
new  type  of  hearers,  such  as  he  has  not  enjoyed  since 
those  early  days  of  his  first  Christian  love,  when,  after 
his  escape  from  Jerusalem,  he  resided  at  the  universit}' 
city  of  Tarsus  for  a  long  time,  till  sought  out  by 
Barnabas  to  come  and  minister  to  the  crowds  of 
Gentiles  who  were  flocking  into  the  Church  at  Antioch.  ^ 
St.  Paul  knew  right  well  the  tenets  of  the  two  classes 
of  men,  the  Stoics  and  the  Epicureans,  with  whom  he 
had  to  contend,  and  he  deals  with  them  effectually  in 
the  speech  which  he  delivered  before  the  court.  Of 
that  address  we  have  only  the  barest  outline.  The 
report  given  in  the  Acts  contains  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  words,  and  must  have  lasted  little  more  than 
two  minutes  if  that  was  all  St.  Paul  said.  It  embodies, 
however,  merely  the  leading  arguments  used  by  the 
Apostle  as  Timothy  or  some  other  disciple  recollected 
them   and   told  them   to   St.   Luke.     Let  us   see  what 

'  That  period  of  retirement  at  Tarsus  may  have  been  utilised  by 
St.  Paul  in  studying  classical  literature  and  Greek  philosophy  by  way 
of  preparation  for  that  life's  work  among  the  Gentiles,  to  which  he  was 
appointed  at  his  conversion. 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  311 

these  arguments  were.  He  begins  with  a  compliment  to 
the  Athenians.  The  Authorised,  and  even  the  Revised, 
Version  represent  him  indeed  as  beginning  like  an 
unskilled  and  unwise  speaker  with  giving  his  audience 
a  slap  in  the  face.  "  Ye  men  of  Athens,  in  all  things 
I  perceive  that  ye  are  somewhat  superstitious,"  would 
not  have  been  the  most  conciliatory  form  of  address 
to  a  keen-witted  assembly  like  that  before  which  he 
was  now  standing.  It  would  have  tended  to  set  their 
backs  up  at  once.  If  we  study  St.  Paul's  Epistles, 
specially  his  First  Epistle  to  Corinth,  we  shall  find  that 
even  when  he  had  to  find  the  most  grievous  faults 
with  his  disciples,  he  always  began  like  a  prudent  man 
by  conciliating  their  feelings,  praising  them  for  what- 
ever he  could  find  good  or  blessed  in  them.  Surely 
if  St.  Paul  acted  thus  with  believers  living  unworthy 
of  their  heavenly  calling,  he  would  be  still  more  careful 
not  to  offend  men  whom  he  wished  to  win  over  to 
Christ !  St.  Paul's  exordium  was  complimentary  rather 
than  otherwise,  bearing  out  the  description  which 
Pausanias  gives  of  the  Athenians  of  his  own  day,  that 
"  they  have  more  than  other  Greeks,  a  zeal  for  religion." 
Let  us  expand  his  thoughts  somewhat  that  we  may 
grasp  their  force.  "  Men  of  Athens,  in  all  things  I  per- 
ceive that  )'e  are  more  religious  and  more  devoted  to  the 
worship  of  the  deity  than  other  men.  For  as  I  passed 
along  and  observed  the  objects  of  your  worship,  I  found 
also  an  altar  with  this  inscription,  To  the  unknown 
God."  St.  Paul  here  displays  his  readiness  as  a 
practised  orator.  He  shows  his  power  and  readiness 
to  become  all  things  to  all  men.  He  seizes  upon  the 
excessive  devotion  of  the  Athenians.  He  does  not 
abuse  them  on  account  of  it,  he  uses  it  rather  as  a  good 
and  useful  foundation  on  which  he  may  build  a  worthier 


312  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

structure,  as  a  good  and  sacred  principle,  hitiierto 
misapplied,  but  henceforth  to  be  dedicated  to  a  nobler 
purpose.  The  circumstance  upon  which  St.  Paul 
seized,  the  existence  of  an  altar  dedicated  to  the  un- 
known God,  is  amply  confirmed  by  historic  evidence. 
St.  Paul  may  have  noticed  such  altars  as  he  passed 
up  the  road  from  Phalerum,  where  he  landed,  to  the 
city  of  Athens,  where,  as  we  learn  from  Pausanias, 
the  next-century  traveller,  such  altars  existed  in  his 
time ;  or  he  may  have  seen  them  on  the  very  hill  of  Are- 
opagus on  which  he  was  standing,  where,  from  ancient 
times,  as  we  learn  from  another  writer,  altars  existed 
dedicated  to  the  unknown  gods  who  sent  a  plague  upon 
Athens.^  St.  Paul's  argument  then  was  this.  The 
Athenians  were  already  worshippers  of  the  Unknown 
God.  This  was  the  very  deity  he  came  proclaiming, 
and  therefore  he  could  not  be  a  setter  forth  of  strange 
gods  nor  liable  to  punishment  in  consequence.  He  then 
proceeds  to  declare  more  fully  the  nature  of  the  Deity 
hitherto  unknown.  He  was  the  God  that  made  the 
world  and  all  things  therein.  He  was  not  identical 
therefore  with  the  visible  creation  as  the  Pantheism  of 
the  Stoics  declared,^  but  gave  to  all  out  of  His  own 

'  There  are  frequent  notices  of  the  altars  to  the  unknown  gods  in 
ancient  Greek  writers  :  as  in  Pausanias,  Description  of  Greece,  vol.  i.,  p.  2 
(Shilleto's  translation);  Life  of  ApoUonitis,  by  Philostratus,  vi.,  3; 
Lucian's  Philopatris,  29.  See,  however,  for  exhaustive  discussions  of 
this  point,  and  the  whole  subject  of  the  topography  of  ancient  Athens, 
Lewin's  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  p.  242 ;  Farrar's  St.  Paul,  ch.  xxvii.,  and 
Conybeare  and  Howson's  St.  Paul,  vol.  i.,  ch.  x.  Spon  and  Wheeler 
were  travellers  of  the  seventeenth  century,  whose  works  on  this  subject 
are  important  as  showing  Athens  as  it  existed  before  modern  changes. 
Some  of  the  reports  of  travels  in  Greece,  made  by  eminent  scholars  in 
the  same  century,  and  now  very  little  known,  maybe  found  in  the  early 
volumes  of  the  Philosophical  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society. 

"^  St.  Paul  shows  that  he  could  sympathise  with  the  true  element  in 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  313 

immense  fulness  life  and  wealth,  and  all  things  ;  neither 
was  He  like  the  gods  of  the  Epicureans  who  sat  far 
aloof  from  all  care  and  thought  about  this  lower  world. 
St.  Paul  taught  God's  personal  existence  as  against  the 
Stoics,  and  God's  providence  as  against  the  Epicureans. 
Then  he  struck  straight  at  the  root  of  that  national 
pride,  that  supreme  contempt  for  the  outside  barbaric 
world,  which  existed  as  strongly  among  these  cultured 
agnostic  Greek  philosophers  as  among  the  most  nar- 
row, fanatical,  and  bigoted  Jews :  "  He  made  of  one 
every  nation  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the 
earth,  having  determined  their  appointed  seasons,  and 
the  bounds  of  their  habitation  ;  that  they  should  seek 
God,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him,  and  find 
Him."  A  doctrine  which  must  have  sounded  exceeding 
strange  to  these  Greeks  accustomed  to  despise  the 
barbarian  world,  looking  down  upon  it  from  the  height 
of  their  learning  and  civilisation,  and  regarding  them- 
selves as  the  only  favourites  of  Heaven.  St.  Paul 
proclaims  on  the  Hill  of  Mars  Christian  liberalism,  the 
catholic  and  cosmopolitan  character  of  the  true  religion 
in  opposition  to  this  Greek  contempt  grounded  on  mere 
human  position  and  privilege,  as  clearly  and  as  loudly 
as  he  proclaimed  the  same  great  truth  at  Jerusalem  or 
in  the  synagogues  of  the  Dispersion  in  opposition  to 
Jewish  exclusiveness  grounded  on  the  Divine  covenant. 
St.  Paul  had  grasped  the  great  lesson  taught  by  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  as  they  prophesied 
concerning  Babylon,  Egypt,  and  Tyre.  They  proclaimed 
the  lesson  which  Jewish  ears  were  slow  to  learn,  they 
taught  the  Jews  the  truth  which  Paul  preached  to  the 


•y 


pantheistic  .stoicism  by  his  famous  words  which  have  a  certain  pan- 
theistic ring,  but  still  a  very  different  one  from  that  of  the  Stoics  :  "  In 
Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being." 


314  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

philosophers  of  Athens,  they  acted  upon  the  principle 
which  it  was  the  great  work  of  Paul's  life  to  exemplify, 
that  God's  care  and  love  and  providence  are  over  all 
His  works,  that  His  mercies  are  not  restrained  to  any 
one  nation,  but  that,  having  made  of  one  all  nations 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  His  blessings  are  bestowed 
upon  them  all  alike.  This  truth  here  taught  by  St. 
Paul  has  been  slow  to  make  its  way.  Men  have  been 
slow  to  acknowledge  the  equality  of  all  nations  in 
God's  sight,  very  slow  to  give  up  their  own  claims  to 
exceptional  treatment  and  blessing  on  the  part  of  the 
Almighty.  The  great  principle  enunciated  by  the 
Apostle  struck,  for  instance,  at  the  evil  of  slavery,  yet 
how  slowly  it  made  its  way.  Till  thirty  years  ago 
really  good  and  pious  men  saw  nothing  inconsistent 
with  Christianity  in  negro  slavery.  Christian  com- 
munions even  were  established  grounded  on  this  funda- 
mental principle,  the  righteous  character  of  slavery. 
John  Newton  was  a  slave  trader,  and  seems  to  have 
seen  nothing  wrong  in  it.  George  Whitfield  owned 
slaves,  and  bequeathed  them  as  part  of  his  property  to 
be  held  for  his  Orphan  House  in  America.  But  it  is 
not  only  slavery  that  this  great  principle  overthrows. 
It  strikes  down  every  form  of  injustice  and  wrong. 
God  has  made  all  men  of  one ;  they  are  all  equally 
His  care,  and  therefore  every  act  of  injustice  is  a 
violation  of  the  Divine  law  which  is  thus  expressed. 
Such  ideas  must  have  seemed  exceedingly  strange, 
and  even  unnatural  to  men  accustomed  to  reverence 
the  teaching  and  study  the  writings  of  guides  like 
Aristotle,  whose  dogma  was  that  slavery  was  based  on 
the  very  constitution  of  nature  itself  which  formed 
some  men  to  rule  and  others  to  be  slaves. 

St.  Paul  does  not  finish  with  this.     He  has  not  yet 


xvii.  i6-i8;xviii.  I.]     ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  315 

exhausted  all  his  message.  He  had  now  dealt  with 
the  intellectual  errors  and  mistakes  of  his  hearers. 
He  had  around  him  and  above  him,  if  he  could  but 
see  the  magnificent  figure  of  Athene,  the  pride  and 
glory  of  the  Acropolis,  with  its  surrounding  temples, 
the  most  striking  proofs  how  their  intellectual  mistakes 
had  led  the  wise  of  this  world  into  fatal  and  degrading 
practices.  In  the  course  of  his  argument,  having  shown 
the  nearness  of  God  to  man,  "  In  Him  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,"  and  the  Divine  desire  that 
man  should  seek  after  and  know  God,  he  quoted 
a  passage  common  to  several  well-known  poets,  "For 
we  are  also  His  offspring;"  ^  This  was  sufficient  for 
St.  Paul,  who  as  we  see,  in  all  his  Epistles,  often  flies 
off  at  a  tangent  when  a  word  slips  as  it  were  by  chance 
from  his  pen,  leading  him  off  to  a  new  train  of  ideas. 
We  are  the  offspring  of  God.  How  is  it  then  that  men 
can  conceive  the  Godhead,  that  which  is  Divine,  to  be 
like  unto  those  gold  and  silver,  brass  or  marble  statues, 
even  though  wrought  with  the  greatest  possible  skill. 
The  philosophers  indeed  pretended  to  distinguish 
between  the  Eternal  Godhead  and  these  divinities 
and   images  innumerable,  which  were  but  representa- 

'  These  words  are  directly  and  literally  taken  out  of  the  Phcettoinetta 
of  Aratus,  a  Greek  poet  of  Cilicia  and  a  fellow-countryman  of  the 
orator.  He  was  absolutely  correct,  however,  in  saying  "  certain  of  your 
own  poets,"  as  the  same  bcntiment  is  found  in  a  hymn  to  Jupiter,  com- 
posed by  the  Stoic  philosopher  and  poet  Cleanthes,  a  poem  which  will 
be  found  with  a  Latin  version  in  Cudworth's  Intellectual  System. 
Cleanthes  was  the  immediate  successor  of  Zeno,  the  founder  of  Stoicism. 
His  words  therefore  would  have  the  more  weight  with  his  disciples  three 
centuries  later.  He  died,  like  a  Stoic,  of  hunger,  aged  eighty,  and  a 
statue  was  erected  to  him  by  the  Roman  Senate  in  his  native  place 
Assos,  a  town  of  ^olis  in  Greece.  See  for  more  about  Cleanthes  and 
Aratus,  Fabricius,  Bibliotheca  Grceca,  or  Smith's  Diet.  Greek  and  Rom. 


3i6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tions  of  his  several  characteristics  and  attributes. 
But  even  if  they  distinguished  intellectually,  they  did 
not  distinguish  in  practice,  and  the  people  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  identified  the  idol  with  the  deity 
itself,  and  rendered  thereto  the  honour  due  to  God.^ 

St.  Paul  then  proceeds  to  enunciate  his  own  doctrines. 
He  lightly  touches  upon,  as  he  did  previously  at  Lystra 
(ch.  xiv.  1 6),  a  subject  which  neither  the  time  at  his 
disposal  nor  the  position  of  his  hearers  would  permit 
him  to  discuss.  He  glances  at,  but  does  not  attempt  to 
explain,  why  God  had  postponed  to  that  late  date  this 
novel  teaching :  "  The  times  of  ignorance  God  over- 
looked ;  but  now  He  commandeth  men  that  they  should 
all  everywhere  repent."  This  doctrine  of  repentance, 
involving  a  sense  of  sin  and  sorrow  for  it,  must  have 
sounded  exceeding  strange  to  those  philosophic  ears,  as 
did  the  announcement  with  which  the  Apostle  follows 
it  up,  the  proclamation  of  a  future  judgment  by  a  Man 
whom  God  had  ordained  for  the  purpose,  and  authenti- 
cated by  raising  him  from  the  dead.  Here  the  crowd 
interrupted  him.  The  Resurrection,  or  Anastasis, 
which  Paul  preached  was  not  then  a  new  deity,  but  an 
impossible  process  through  which  no  man  save  in 
fable  had  ever  passed.  When  the  Apostle  got  thus 
far  the  assembly  broke  up.  The  idea  of  a  resurrection 
of  a  dead  man  was  too  much  for  them.  It  was  too 
ludicrous  for  belief  "  Some  mocked  :  but  others  said. 
We  will  hear  thee  again  of  this  matter,"  and  thus  ended 
St.  Paul's  address,  and  thus  ended  too  the  Athenian 
opportunity,  for  St.  Paul  soon  passed  away  from  such  a 

'  As  it  was  with  the  ancient  image  worshippers,  so  is  it  with  the 
modern.  The  excuses  made  for  the  pagans  in  ancient  times  are  exactly 
the  same  as  those  made  for  the  image  worshippers  of  the  eighth  and 
later  centuries :  see  the  article  on  Iconoclasm  in  the  Diet,  Christ,  Biog, 


xvii.  i6-i8;xvm.  I.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  317 

society  of  learned  triflers  and  scoffers.  They  sat  in  the 
seat  of  the  scorner,  and  the  seat  of  the  scorner  is  never 
a  good  one  for  a  learner  to  occupy  who  wishes  to  profit. 
He  felt  that  he  had  no  great  work  to  do  in  such  a  place. 
His  opportunity  lay  where  hearts  were  broken  with  sin 
and  sorrow,  where  the  burden  of  life  weighed  upon  the 
soul,  and  men  heavy  laden  and  sore  pressed  were 
longing  for  real  deliverance  and  for  a  higher,  nobler 
life  than  the  world  could  offer.  His  work,  however,  was 
not  all  in  vain,  nor  were  his  personal  discussions  and 
his  public  address  devoid  of  results.  The  Church  of 
Athens  was  one  of  those  which  could  look  back  to 
St.  Paul  as  its  founder.  "  Not  many  wise  after  the 
flesh  were  called  "  in  that  city  of  wisdom  and  beauty, 
but  some  were  called,  among  whom  was  one  of  those 
very  judges  who  sat  to  investigate  the  Apostle's  teach- 
ing :  "  But  certain  clave  unto  him,  and  believed : 
among  whom  also  was  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  and 
a  woman  named  Damaris,  and  others  with  them." 
And  this  Church  thus  founded  became  famous ;  Diony- 
sius the  Areopagite  becam.e  afterwards  a  celebrated 
man,  because  his  name  was  attached  some  five  cen- 
turies later  to  a  notorious  forgery  which  has  played  no 
small  part  in  later  Christian  histor3^-     Dionysius  was 


'  Few  biblical  characters  have  been  so  surrounded  with  a  haze  of 
fable  as  Dionysius  the  Areopagite.  All  that  we  certainly  know  about 
him  is  from  this  passage  in  the  Acts,  and  from  two  notices  by  Eusebius, 
If.  E. ,  iii.  4,  and  iv.  23.  In  the  Acta  Sanctoi-utn  the  Bollandists  bestow 
an  immense  quantity  of  space  on  Dionysius  and  the  literature  of  the 
subject  under  the  date  Oct.  9th,  in  their  Fourth  Volume  for  October, 
pp.  696-987.  The  name  of  Dionysius  became  specially  celebrated  when 
about  the  year  500  it  was  attached  to  an  impudent  forgery  called  the 
Heavenly  Hierarchy,  from  which  has  been  largely  derived  the  modern 
Roman  doctrine  of  the  Assumption  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  which 
has  also  exercised  a  great  influence  on  the  development  of  modern  pan- 


3i8  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  first  bishop  of  the  Athenian  Church  according  to 
the  testimony  of  another  Dionysius,  Bishop  of  Corinth, 
who  Hved  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  while 
persons  were  yet  living  who  could  remember  the 
Areopagite.  He  was  succeeded  by  Publius,  who  pre- 
sided over  the  Church  at  an  important  period  of  its 
existence.  The  Emperor  Hadrian  came  to  Athens, 
and  was  charmed  with  it  about  the  year  125  a.d.  At 
that  time  the  Athenian  Church  must  have  included 
among  its  members  several  learned  men ;  for  the  two 
earliest  Apologies  in  defence  of  Christianity  were  pro- 
duced by  it.  The  Athenian  Church  had  just  then  been 
purified  by  the  fiery  trials  of  persecution.  Quadratus 
and  Aristides  stood  forth  to  plead  its  cause  before  the 
Emperor.^     Of  Quadratus  and  his  work  we  know  but 

theism  :  see  the  article  on  Dionysius  in  vol.  i.  of  Smith's  Dic(.  Christ, 
Biog.  Johannes  Scotus  Erigena,  an  Irish  scholar  of  the  ninth  century, 
was  the  only  man  in  France  found  capable  of  translating  these  Greek 
works  when  brought  to  Western  Europe  from  the  East :  see  Vett.  Epistt. 
Hibernic.  Sylloge,  xxii.,  xxiii.,  xxiv.,in  Ussher's  Works  (Ed.  Elrington), 
iv.  474-87.  Dionysius  is  commemorated  on  Oct.  3rd  in  the  ancient 
Latin  Martyrologies,  on  Oct.  9th  in  the  modern  Roman  Martyrology. 
The  ancient  Martyrologies — the  ancient  Roman,  Ado's,  Usaurd's — have 
a. curious  notice  stating  that  Aristides  the  Athenian,  in  a  work  which  he 
wrote  about  the  Christian  religion,  described  the  martyrdom  of  Dionysius 
in  the  reign  of  Hadrian.  There  is  no  notice  of  this  in  the  Apology 
of  Aristides  which  has  lately  come  to  light.  A  curious  story  is  told 
in  one  of  his  alleged  letters,  addressed  to  Polycarp.  ApoUophanes, 
a  pagan  sophist,  was  attacking  Polycarp  about  Christianity.  Dionysius 
tells  Polycarp  to  remind  his  opponent  of  the  miraculous  darkness  on 
the  day  of  Crucifixion  which  Dionysius  and  ApoUophanes  had  seen  at 
Hierapolis,  where  they  were  then  both  students,  when  Dionysius  said, 
"  Either  the  God  of  nature  suffers,  or  the  world  is  in  process  of 
dissolution." 

'  The  visits  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian  to  Athens,  and  his  delight  in 
that  city,  have  been  confirmed  by  the  latest  antiquarian  investigations 
in  the  region  of  coins  and  inscriptions.  The  student  who  wishes  to  make 
acquaintance  with  the  evidence  on  this  point,  which  has  an  important 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  319 

little.  Eusebius,  the  great  Church  historian,  had,  how- 
ever, seen  it,  and  gives  us  (i/.  E.,  iv.  3)  a  brief  abstract  of 
it,  appealing  to  the  miracles  of  our  Saviour,  and  stating 
that  some  of  the  dead  whom  Christ  had  raised  had 
lived  to  his  own  time.  While  as  for  Aristides,  the 
other  apologist,  his  work,  after  lying  hidden  from  the 
sight  of  Christendom,  was  printed  and  published  last 
year,  as  we  have  told  in  the  former  volume  of  this  com- 
mentary. That  Apology  of  Aristides  has  much  import- 
ant teaching  for  us,  as  we  have  there  tried  to  show. 
There  is  one  point,  however,  to  which  we  did  not  allude. 
The  Apology  of  Aristides  shows  us  that  the  Athenian 
Church  accepted  in  the  fullest  degree  and  preserved 
the  great  Pauline  doctrine  of  the  freedom  and  catholic 
nature  of  Christianity.  In  the  year  125  Judaism  and 
Christianity  were  still  struggling  together  within  the 
Church  in  other  places ;  but  at  Athens  they  had  clean 
separated  the  one  from  the  other.  Till  that  year  no 
one  but  a  circumcised  Jewish  Christian  had  ever  pre- 
sided over  the  Mother  Church  of  Jerusalem,  which 
sixty  years  after  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Paul  preserved  exactly  the  same  attitude  as  in  the  days 

bearing  upon  the  historic  proof  of  our  holy  religion,  should  consult  the 
learned  treatise  of  Julius  Diirr,  styled,  Die  Reisen  der  Kaisers  Hadrian, 
(Vienna,  1881 ).  It  minutely  investigates  the  records  of  Hadrian's  life,  and 
shows  us  that  Hadrian  visited  and  lived  at  Athens  in  a.d.  125.  This 
work  was  published  ten  years  before  the  Apology  of  the  Athenian 
Christian  Aristides  was  discovered,  serving  to  illustrate  its  history  from 
an  independent  point  of  view.  I  have  endeavoured  to  set  forth  the 
bearing  of  this  point  at  greater  length  than  I  can  now  bestow  upon 
it  in  a  series  of  papers  on  the  Apology  of  Aristides  in  the  Sunday  at 
Home  for  1891-2.  Mrs.  Rendal  Harris,  the  wife  of  the  discoverer 
of  it,  has  published  an  interesting  work  on  this  Apology,  to  which  I 
would  refer  the  reader  (London  :  Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1892).  The 
Apology  itself  was  published  in  1891,  in  the  series  called  Cambridge^ 
Texts  and  Studies, 


320  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  James  the  Just.^  The  Church  of  Athens,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  a  thoroughly  Gentile  Church,  had  from  the 
first  enjoyed  the  ministry  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite, 
a  Gentile  of  culture  and  education.  He  had  been 
attracted  by  the  broad  liberal  teaching  of  the  Apostle 
in  his  address  upon  Mars'  Hill,  enunciating  a  religion 
free  from  all  narrow  national  limitations.  He  embraced 
this  catholic  teaching  with  his  whole  heart,  and  trans- 
mitted it  to  his  successors,  so  that  when  some  seventy 
years  later  a  learned  Athenian  stood  forth  in  the  person 
of  Aristides,  to  explain  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  con- 
trasting them  with  the  errors  and  mistakes  of  all  other 
nations,  Aristides  does  not  spare  even  the  Jews.  He 
praises  them  indeed  when  compared  with  the  pagans, 
who  had  erred  on  the  primary  questions  of  morals ; 
but  he  blames  them  because  they  had  not  reached  the 
final  and  alsolute  position  occupied  by  the  Christians. 
Listen  to  the  words  of  Aristides  which  proclaim  the 
true  Pauline  doctrine  taught  in  St.  Paul's  sermons, 
re-echoed  by  the  Epistles,  "  Nevertheless  the  Jews  too 
have  gone  astray  from  accurate  knowledge,  and  they 
suppose  in  their  minds  that  they  are  serving  God,  but 
in  the  methods  of  their  service,  their  service  is  to  angels 
and  not  to  God,  in  that  they  observe  Sabbaths  and  new 
moons,  and  the  passover,  and  the  great  fast,  and  the  fast 
and  circumcision,  and  cleanness  of  meats,"  words  which 
sound  exactly  the  same  note  and  embody  the  same 
conception   as  St.  Paul  in   his  indignant    language  to 


'  The  testimony  of  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iv.  5,  is  express  on  this  point : 
"Down  to  the  siege  of  the  Jews  under  Hadrian  there  were  fifteen 
bishops  in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  all  of  whom,  as  they  say,  were 
Hebrews  from  the  first,  and  received  the  genuine  knowledge  of 
Christ,  so  that  in  the  estimation  of  those  able  to  judge  they  were 
counted  worthy  of  the  episcopal  office." 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  GREECE.  321 

the  Galatians  (iv.  9-1 1)  :  "  Now  that  ye  have  come  to 
know  God,  or  rather  to  be  known  of  God,  how  turn  ye 
back  again  to  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements,  where- 
unto  ye  desire  to  be  in  bondage  over  again  ?  Ye 
observe  days,  and  months,  and  seasons,  and  years. 
I  am  afraid  of  you,  lest  by  any  means  I  have  bestowed 
labour  upon  you  in  vain."  ^ 

St.  Paul  did  not  stay  long  at  Athens.  Five  or  six 
weeks  perhaps,  two  months  at  most,  was  probably  the 
length  of  his  visit,  time  enough  just  for  his  Beroean 
guides  to  go  back  to  their  own  city  two  hundred  miles 
away,  and  forward  their  message  to  Thessalonica  fifty 
miles  distant,  desiring  Timothy  and  Silas  to  come  to 
him.  Timothy,  doubtless,  soon  started  upon  his  way, 
tarried  v.i'ith  the  Apostle  for  a  little,  and  then  returned 
to  Thessalonica,  as  we  learn  from  i  Thess.  iii.  I  : 
"  When  we  could  no  longer  forbear,  we  thought  it  good 
to  be  left  at  Athens  alone,  and  sent  Timothy  to  establish 
you  and  comfort  you."  And  now  he  was  again  all 
alone  in  that  scoffing  city  where  neither  the  religious, 
moral,  nor  intellectual  atmosphere  could  have  been 
pleasing  to  a  man  like  St.  Paul,  He  quitted  Athens 
therefore  and  came  to  Corinth.  In  that  city  he  laboured 
for  a  period  of  a  year  and  a  half  at  least ;  and  yet  the 
record  of  his  brief  visit  to  Athens,  unsuccessful  as  it 
was   so   far   as    immediate   results   are  concerned,    is 

'  The  whole  subject  of  the  origin  and  history  of  the  primitive  Church 
of  Athens  has  been  minutely  investigated  by  a  modern  French  scholar, 
C.  Bayet,  a  member  of  the  French  school  of  antiquaries  at  Athens. 
The  title  of  his  book,  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  is  De  Titulis 
Attica  Christianis  Antiqtiissimis  Covimeniatio  (Thorin  :  Paris,  1878). 
He  gives  a  large  number  of  primitive  Christian  and  Jewish  inscrip- 
tions found  at  Athens.  The  above  quotation  from  Aristides  will  be 
found  in  Rendal  Harris's  edition,  p.  48,  in  the  Cambridge  Texts  and 
Studies. 

VOL.  II.  21 


322  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

much  longer  than  the  record  of  his  prolonged  work  in 
Corinth. 

Now  if  we  were  writing  a  life  of  St.  Paul  instead  of  a 
commentary  on  the  history  told  us  in  the  Acts,  we  should 
be  able  to  supplement  the  brief  narrative  of  the  historical 
book  with  the  ample  details  contained  in  the  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul,  especially  the  two  Epistles  written  to  Corinth 
itself,  which  illustrate  the  life  of  the  Apostle,  his  work 
at  Corinth,  and  the  state  of  the  Corinthians  themselves 
prior  and  subsequent  to  their  conversion.  A  considera- 
tion of  these  points  would,  however,  lead  me  to  intrude 
on  the  sphere  of  the  commentator  on  the  Corinthian 
Epistles,  and  demand  an  amount  of  space  which  we 
cannot  afford.  In  addition,  the  three  great  biographies 
of  St.  Paul  to  which  we  have  so  often  referred — Lewin's, 
Farrar's,  and  that  of  Conybeare  and  Howson — treat  this 
subject  at  such  great  length  and  with  such  a  profusion  of 
archaeological  learning  as  practically  leave  a  fresh  writer 
nothing  new  to  say  in  this  direction.  Let  us,  however, 
look  briefly  at  the  record  in  the  Acts  of  St.  Paul's  work 
in  Corinth,  viewing  it  from  the  expositor's  point  of  view. 
St.  Paul  went  from  Athens  to  Corinth  discouraged,  it 
may  have  been,  by  the  results  of  his  Athenian  labours. 
Opposition  never  frightened  St.  Paul;  but  learned 
carelessness,  haughty  contemptuous  indifference  to  his 
Divine  message,  the  outcome  of  a  spirit  devoid  of  any 
true  spiritual  life,  quenched  his  ardour,  chilled  his  enthu- 
siasm. He  must  indeed  have  been  sorely  repelled  by 
Athens  when  he  set  out  all  alone  for  the  great  capital 
of  Achaia,  the  wicked,  immoral,  debased  city  of  Corinth. 
When  he  came  thither  he  united  himself  with  Aquila, 
a  Jew  of  Pontus,  and  Priscilla  his  wife,  because  they 
were  members  of  the  same  craft.  They  had  been  lately 
expelled  from  Rome,  and,  like  the  Apostle,  were  tent- 


xvii.  i6-i8;xviii.  I.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  GREECE.  323 

makers :  for  convenience'  sake  therefore,  and  to  save 
expense,  they  all  lodged  together.^  Here  again  St.  Paul 
experienced  the  wisdom  of  his  father's  training  and  of 
the  Rabbinical  law,  which  thus  made  him  in  Corinth, 
as  before  in  Thessalonica,  thoroughly  independent  of 
all  external  circumstances,  and  able  with  his  own  hands 
to  minister  to  his  body's  wants.  And  it  was  a  fortunate 
thing  too  for  the  gospel's  sake  that  he  was  able  to  do 
so.  St.  Paul  never  permits  any  one  to  think  for  a 
moment  that  the  claim  of  Christ's  ministry  for  a  fitting 
support  is  a  doubtful  one.  He  expressly  teaches  again 
and  again,  as  in  i  Cor.  ix.,  that  it  is  the  Scriptural 
as  well  as  rational  duty  of  the  people  to  contribute 
according  to  their  means  to  the  maintenance  of  Christ's 
public  ministry.  But  there  were  certain  circumstances 
at  Thessalonica,  and  above  all  at  Corinth,  which  made 
St.  Paul  waive  his  just  claim  and  even  cramp,  limit,  and 
confine  his  exertions,  by  imposing  on  himself  the  work 
of  earning  his  daily  food.  Thessalonica  and  Corinth 
had  immense  Jewish  populations.  The  Jews  were 
notorious  in  that  age  as  furnishing  the  greatest  number 
of  impostors,  quack  magicians  and  every  other  kind  of 
agency  which  traded    upon    human   credulity  for    the 

'  This  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  Rome  by  Claudius,  which  in  the 
providence  of  Gcd  brought  Aquila  and  Priscilla  into  contact  with  St. 
Paul,  is  mentioned  by  the  Roman  historian  Suetonius,  Claudius,  25, 
in  the  following  suggestive  words  :  ' '  He  expelled  the  Jews  who  were 
continually  creating  tumults,  Chestus  impelling  them."  The  tumults 
roused  by  the  teaching  of  Christian  doctrine,  like  those  in  the  Thessa- 
lonian  and  Bercean  synagogues,  were  evidently  the  origin  of  the  edict. 
Aquila  and  Priscilla  were  constant  travellers,  and  seem  to  have  been 
influential  Christians.  We  find  them  afterwards  at  Ephesus,  where  they 
tarried  some  time  :  see  Acts  xviii.  18,  19,  26;  i  Cor.  xvi.  19;  and 
subsequently  2  Tim.  iv.  19.  They  also  lived  at  Rome  for  a  period 
between  their  two  residences  at  Ephesus,  as  we  learn  from  the  fact  that 
St.  Paul  sends  a  salutation  to  them  in  Romans  xvi.  3,  4. 


324  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

purposes  of  gain.  St.  Paul  was  determined  that  neither 
Jew  nor  Gentile  in  either  place  should  be  able  to  hinder 
the  work  of  the  gospel  by  accusing  him  of  self-seeking 
or  covetous  purposes.  For  this  purpose  he  united 
with  Aquila.'  and  Priscilla  in  working  at  their  common 
trade  as  'tentmakers,  employing  the  Sabbath  days  in 
debating  after  his  usual  fashion  in  the  Jewish  syna- 
gogues ;  and  upon  ordinary  days  improving  the  hours 
daring  which  his  hands  laboured  upon  the  coarse  hair 
cloth  of  which  tents  were  made,  either  in  expounding 
to  his  fellow- work  men  the  glorious  news  which  he 
proclaimed  or  else  in  meditating  upon  the  trials  of  his 
converts  in  Macedonia,  or  perhaps,  most  of  all,  in  that 
perpetual  communion  with  God,  that  never-ceasing 
intercession  for  which  he  ever  found  room  and  time  in 
the  secret  chambers  of  the  soul.  St.  Paul's  interces- 
sions as  we  read  of  them  in  his  Epistles  were  immense. 
Intercessory  prayers  for  his  individual  converts  are 
frequently  mentioned  by  him.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  for  a  man  so  hard  pressed  with  labours  of 
every  kind  temporal  and  spiritual  to  find  place  for  them 
all  in  formal  prayers  if  St.  Paul  did  not  cultivate  the 
habit  of  ceaseless  communion  y«?ith  his  Father  in  heaven, 
perpetually  bringing  before  God  those  cases  and  persons 
which  lay  dearest  to  his  heart.  This  habit  of  secret 
prayer  must  be  the  explanation  of  St.  Paul's  widespread 
intercessions,  and  for  this  reason.  He  commends  the 
same  practice  again  and  again  to  his  converts.  "  Pray 
without  ceasing  "  is  his  language  to  the  Thessalonians 
(i  Thess.  V.  17).  Now  this  could  not  mean,  prolong 
your  private  devotions  to  an  inordinate  length,  because 
great  numbers  of  his  converts  were  slaves  who  were 
not  masters  of  their  time.  But  it  does  mean  cultivate 
a  perpetual  sense  of  God's  presence  and  of  your  own 


xvii.  i6-i8;xviii.  I.]    ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  325 

communion  with  Him,  which  will  turn  life  and  its 
busiest  work  into  a  season  of  refreshing  prayer  and 
untiring  intercession. 

Meanwhile,  according  to  Acts  xviii.  5,  Silas  and 
Timothy  arrived  from  Macedonia,  bringing  contributions 
for  the  Apostle's  support,  which  enabled  him  to  fling 
himself  entirely  into  ministerial  and  evangelistic  work. 
This  renewed  activity  soon  told.  St.  Paul  had  no 
longer  to  complain  of  contemptuous  or  listless  conduct, 
as  at  Athens.  He  experienced  at  Jewish  hands  in 
Corinth  exactly  the  same  treatment  as  at  Thessalonica 
and  Beroea.  Paul  preached  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ. 
The  Jews  blasphemed  Him,  and  called  Him  accursed. 
Their  attitude  became  so  threatening  that  Paul  was  at 
length  compelled  to  retire  from  the  synagogue,  and, 
separating  his  disciples,  Jews  and  Gentiles  alike,  he 
withdrew  to  the  house  of  one  Justus,  a  man  whose 
Latin  name  bespeaks  his  Western  origin,  who  lived  next 
door  to  the  synagogue.  Thenceforth  he  threw  himself 
with  all  his  energy  into  his  work.  God  too  directly 
encouraged  him.  The  very  proximity  of  the  Christian 
Church  to  the  Jewish  Synagogue  constituted  a  special 
danger  to  himself  personally  when  he  had  to  deal  with 
fanatical  Jews.  A  heavenly  visitor  appeared,  therefore, 
to  refresh  the  wearied  saint.  In  his  hour  of  danger  and 
of  weakness  God's  strength  and  grace  were  perfected, 
and  assurance  was  granted  that  the  Lord  had  much 
people  in  the  city  of  Corinth,  and  that  no  harm  should 
happen  to  him  while  striving  to  seek  out  and  gather 
God's  sheep  that  were  scattered  abroad  in  the  midst  of 
the  naughty  world  of  Corinthian  life.  And  the  secret 
vision  did  not  stand  alone.  External  circumstances 
lent  their  assistance  and  support.  Crispus,  the  chief 
ruler  of  the  synagogue,  and  his  family  became  converts, 


326  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  were  baptized.  Gaius  and  Stephanas  were  import- 
ant converts  gathered  from  amongst  the  Gentiles  ;  so 
important  indeed  were  these  three  individuals  and  their 
famihes  that  St.  Paul  turned  aside  from  his  purely 
evangelistic  and  missionary  labours  and  devoted  him- 
self to  the  pastoral  work  of  preparing  them  for  baptism 
administering  personally  that  holy  sacrament,  a  duty 
which  he  usually  left  to  his  assistants,  who  were  not  so 
well  qualified  for  the  rough  pioneer  efforts  of  controversy, 
which  he  had  marked  out  for  himself.^  And  so  the  work 
went  on  for  a  year  and  a  half,  till  the  Jews  thought 
they  saw  their  opportunity  for  crushing  the  audacious 
apostate  who  was  thus  making  havoc  even  among 
the  officials  of  their  own  organisation,  inducing  them 
to  join  his  Nazarene  synagogue.^  Achaia,  of  which 
Corinth  was  the  capital,  was  a  Roman  province,  embrac- 
ing, broadly  speaking,  the  territory  comprised  in  the 
modern  kingdom  of  Greece.     Like  a  great  many  other 

'  See  I  Cor.  i.  14-17  :  *'  I  thank  God  that  I  baptized  none  of  you,  save 
Crispus  and  Gaius  ;  lest  any  man  should  say  that  ye  were  baptized  into 
my  name.  And  I  baptized  also  the  household  of  Stephanas  :  besides, 
I  know  not  whether  I  baptized  any  other.  For  Christ  sent  me  not  to 
baptize,  but  to  preach  the  gospel."  I  have  often  heard  a  very  wrong 
conclusion  drawn  from  this  passage.  People  think  that  St.  Paul  was 
here  casting  a  certain  slight  upon  baptism  as  contrasted  with  preaching. 
His  meaning,  however,  is  evident  to  any  one  who  will  realise  the 
circumstances.  The  Corinthians  were  breaking  up  into  sects,  calling 
themselves  by  the  names  of  various  Christian  leaders.  St.  Paul  thanks 
God  that  very  few  can  call  themselves  by  his  name,  as  they  had  not 
even  the  poor  excuse  for  doing  so,  which  his  officiating  at  their  baptism 
might  give.  To  him,  in  God's  providence,  had  been  assigned  the 
rough,  dangerous  pioneer  work  of  preaching  to  the  adversaries,  Jews 
and  pagans,  outside  the  Church  ;  to  others  the  work  of  introducing  the 
converts  made  by  him  into  the  Mystical  Body  of  Christ. 

'■'  In  vol.  i.,  p.  270,  I  have  pointed  out  that  in  Corinth  the  Christians 
probably  'adopted,  not  only  the  name,  but  the  organisation  of  the 
synagogues. 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  GREECE.  327 

provinces,  and  specially  like  Cyprus,  to  which  we  have 
already  called  attention,  Achaia  was  at  times  an 
imperial,  at  times  a  senatorial  province.  Forty  years 
earlier  it  was  an  imperial  province.  The  Acts  describes 
it  as  just  then,  that  is,  about  a.d.  53,  a  senatorial  or 
proconsular  province ;  and  Suetonius,  an  independent 
Roman  historian,  confirms  this,  telling  us  {Claud. ^  25) 
that  the  Emperor  Claudius  restored  it  to  the  senate. 

Gallio,  a  brother  of  the  celebrated  philosophic  writer 
Seneca,  had  been  sent  to  it  as  proconsul,  and  the  Jews 
thought  they  now  saw  their  opportunity.  Gallio,  whose 
original  and  proper  name  was  Annaeus  Novatus,  was 
a  man  distinguished  by  what  in  Rome  was  considered 
his  sweet,  gentle,  and  loving  disposition.  His  reputation 
may  have  preceded  him,  and  the  Jews  of  Corinth  may 
have  thought  that  they  would  play  upon  his  easy-going 
temper.  The  Jews,  being  a  very  numerous  community 
at  Corinth,  had  it  of  course  in  their  power  to  prove  very 
unpleasant  to  any  ruler,  and  specially  to  one  of  Gallio's 
reputed  temper.^  The  Roman  governors  were  invested 
with  tremendous  powers ;  they  were  absolute  despots, 
in  fact,  for  the  time  being,  and  yet  they  were  often 
very  anxious  to  gain  popularity,  especially  with  any 
troublesome  body  of  their  temporary  subjects.  The 
Roman  proconsuls,  in  fact,  adopted  a  principle  we 
sometimes  see  still  acted  out  in  political  life,  as  if  it 
were  the  highest  type  of  statesmanship.  They  were 
anxious  to  gain  popularity  by  gratifying  those  who  made 
themselves  specially  obnoxious  and  raised  the  loudest 
cries.  They  petted  the  naughty,  and  they  neglected  the 
good.     So  it  was  with  Pontius  Pilate,  who  perpetrated 

'  Cicero,  in  his  oration  Pro  Flacco,  cli.  xxviii.,  shows  how  trouble- 
some and  dangerous,  even  to  the  very  highest  persons,  the  Jews  at 
Rome  could  be  one  hundred  years  earlier  than  Gallio's  day. 


328  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

a  judicial  murder  because  it  contented  the  multitude ; 
so  it  was  with  Festus,  who  left  an  innocent  man  in 
bonds  at  Caesarea  because  he  desired  to  gain  favour 
with  the  Jews  ;  and  so  too,  thought  the  Jews  of  Corinth, 
it  would  be  with  Gallio.  They  arrested  the  Apostle, 
therefore,  using  the  messengers  of  the  synagogue  for 
the  purpose,  and  brought  him  to  the  proconsular  court, 
where  they  set  him  before  the  bema,  or  elevated  plat- 
form, whence  the  Roman  magistrates  dispensed  justice. 
Then  they  laid  their  formal  accusation  against  him  : 
"This  man  persuadeth  men  to  worship  God  contrary 
to  the  law "  ;  expecting  perhaps  that  he  would  be 
remitted  by  the  proconsul  to  the  judgment  and  discipline 
of  their  own  domestic  tribunal,  even  as  Pilate  said  to 
the  Jews  about  our  Lord  and  their  accusation  against 
Him:  "Take  ye  Him,  and  judge  Him  according  to  your 
law."  But  the  philosophic  brother  of  the  Stoic  Seneca 
had  a  profound  contempt  for  these  agitating  Jews.  His 
Stoic  education  too  had  trained  him  to  allow  external 
things  as  little  influence  upon  the  mind  as  possible. 
The  philosophic  apathy  which  the  Stoics  cultivated 
must  have  more  or  less  affected  his  whole  nature,  as 
he  soon  showed  the  Jews ;  for  before  the  Apostle  had 
time  to  reply  to  the  charge  Gallio  burst  in  contemptu- 
ously. If  it  were  a  matter  of  law  and  order,  he 
declares,  it  would  be  right  to  attend  to  it ;  but  if  your 
complaint  is  touching  your  own  national  law  and 
customs  I  will  have  nothing  to  say  to  it.  And  then 
he  commanded  his  lictors  to  clear  the  court.  Thus 
ended  the  attempt  on  St.  Paul's  freedom  or  life,  an 
attempt  which  was  indeed  more  disastrous  to  the  Jews 
themselves  than  to  any  one  else ;  for  the  Gentile  mob 
of  Corinth,  hating  the  Jews,  and  glad  to  see  them 
baulked  of  their  expected  prey,  seized  the  chief  accuser 


xvii.  i6-i8;  xviii.  I.]     ST.   PAUL  IN  GREECE.  329 

Sosthenes,  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  and  beat  him 
before  the  judgment-seat;  while  Gallic  all  the  while 
cared  for  none  of  these  things,  despising  the  mob,  Jew 
and  Gentile  alike,  and  contemptuously  pitying  them 
from  the  height  of  his  philosophic  self-contentment. 
Gallio  has  been  at  all  times  regarded  as  the  type  of 
the  mere  worldling,  who,  wrapped  in  material  interests, 
cares  for  nothing  higher  or  nobler.  But  this  is  scarcely 
fair  to  Gallio.  The  Stoic  philosopher  was  not  dead  to 
better  things.  But  he  is  the  type  rather  of  men  who, 
blinded  by  lower  truths  and  mere  intellectual  wisdom, 
are  thereby  rendered  careless  of  those  spiritual  matters 
in  which  the  soul's  true  life  alone  consists.  He  had  so 
thoroughly  cultivated  a  philosophic  contempt  for  the 
outside  world  and  its  business,  the  sayings  and  doings, 
the  joys  and  the  sorrows  of  the  puny  mortals  who 
fume  and  strut  and  fret  their  lives  away  upon  this 
earthly  stage,  that  he  lost  the  opportunity  of  hearing 
from  the  Apostle's  lips  of  a  grander  philosophy,  a 
deeper  contentment,  of  a  truer,  more  satisfying  peace 
than  was  ever  dreamt  of  in  stoical  speculation.  And 
this  type  of  man  is  not  extinct.  Philosophy,  science, 
art,  literature,  politics,  they  are  all  great  facts,  all  offer 
vast  fields  for  human  activity,  and  all  may  serve  for 
a  time  so  thoroughly  to  content  and  satisfy  man's  inner 
being  as  to  render  him  careless  of  that  life  in  Christ 
which  alone  abideth  for  evermore. 

The  attempt  of  the  Jews  marked  the  termination  of 
St.  Paul's  work  in  Corinth.  It  was  at  least  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  He  had  now  laboured  longer  in 
Corinth  than  anywhere  else  since  he  started  out  from 
Antioch.  He  had  organised  and  consolidated  the 
Church,  as  we  can  see  from  his  Corinthian  Epistles 
and  now  he  longed  once  more  to  visit  his  old  friends, 


330  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  report  what  God  had  wrought  by  his  means  dunng 
his  long  absence.  He  tarried,  therefore,  yet  a  while, 
visiting  doubtless  the  various  Churches  which  he  had 
established  throughout  all  the  province  of  Achaia,  and 
then,  accompanied  by  a  few  companions,  set  sail  for 
Syria,  to  declare  the  results  of  his  eventful  mission, 
taking  Ephesus  on  his  way.  This  was  his  first  visit 
to  that  great  city,  and  he  was  probably  led  to  pay 
it  owing  to  the  commercial  necessities  of  Aquila,  Life's 
actions  and  deeds,  even  in  the  case  of  an  apostle,  are 
moulded  by  very  little  things.  A  glance,  a  chance 
word,  a  passing  courtesy,  forgotten  as  soon  as  done, 
and  hfe  is  very  different  from  what  it  otherwise  would 
have  been.  And  so,  too,  the  tent-making  and  tent- 
selling  of  Aquila  brought  Paul  to  Ephesus,  shaped  the 
remainder  of  his  career,  and  endowed  the  Church  with 
the  rich  spiritual  heritage  of  the  teaching  imparted  to 
the  Ephesian  disciples  by  word  and  epistle. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH  AND  ITS  FOUNDATION. 

"  Paul,  and  with  him  Priscilla  and  Aquila,  came  to  Ephesus,  and 
he  left  them  here :  but  he  himself  entered  into  the  synagogue,  and 
reasoned  with  the  Jews.  And  when  they  asked  him  to  abide  a  longer 
time,  he  consented  not ;  but  taking  his  leave  of  them,  and  saying,  I 
will  return  again  unto  you,  if  God  will,  he  set  sail  from  Ephesus.  .  .  . 
Now  a  certain  man  named  Apollos,  an  Alexandrian  by  race,  a  learned 
man,  came  to  Ephesus ;  and  he  was  mighty  in  the  Scriptures.  This 
man  had  been  instructed  in  the  way  of  the  Lord ;  and  being  fervent 
in  spirit,  he  spake  and  taught  carefully  the  things  concerning  Jesus, 
knowing  only  the  baptism  of  John  :  and  he  began  to  speak  boldly  in  the 
synagogue.  But  when  Priscilla  and  Aquila  heard  him,  they  took  him 
unto  them,  and  expounded  unto  him  the  way  of  God  more  carefully." — 
Acts  xviii.  19-21,  24-26. 

' '  And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  while  Apollos  was  at  Corinth,  Paul 
having  passed  through  the  upper  country,  came  to  Ephesus." — Acts 
xix.  I. 

EPHESUS  has  been  from  very  ancient  times  a 
distinguished  city.  It  was  famous  in  the  religious 
history  of  Asia  Minor  in  times  long  prior  to  the  Chris- 
tian Era.  It  was  celebrated  at  the  time  of  the  Roman 
Empire  as  the  chief  seat  of  the  worship  of  Diana  and 
of  the  magical  practices  associated  with  that  worship  ; 
and  Ephesus  became  more  celebrated  still  in  Christian 
times  as  the  city  where  one  of  the  great  (Ecumenical 
Councils  was  held  which  served  to  determine  the 
expression  of  the  Church's  faith  in  her  Divine  Lord 
and  Master.     It  must  then  be  of  great  interest  to  the 

331 


332  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Christian  student  to  note  the  first  beginnings  of  such 
a  vast  transformation  as  that  whereby  a  chief  seat  of 
pagan  idolatry  was  turned  into  a  special  stronghold  of 
Christian  orthodoxy.  Let  us  then  devote  this  chapter 
to  tracing  the  upgrowth  of  the  Ephesian  Church,  and 
to  noting  the  lessons  the  modern  Church  may  derive 
therefrom. 

St.  Paul  terminated  his  work  in  Corinth  some  time 
about  the  middle  or  towards  the  close  of  the  year 
53  A.D.  In  the  early  summer  of  that  year  Gallio  came 
as  proconsul  to  Achaia,  and  the  Jewish  riot  was  raised. 
After  a  due  interval,  to  show  that  he  was  not  driven 
out  by  Jewish  machinations,  St.  Paul  determined  to 
return  once  more  to  Jerusalem  and  Antioch,  which  he 
had  left  some  four  years  at  least  before.  He  went 
down  therefore  to  Cenchrese,  the  port  of  departure  for 
passengers  going  from  Corinth  to  Ephesus,  Asia  Minor, 
and  Syria.  A  Christian  Church  had  been  established 
there  by  the  exertions  of  St,  Paul  or  some  of  his 
Corinthian  disciples.  As  soon  as  an  early  Christian 
was  turned  from  sin  to  righteousness,  from  the  adora- 
tion of  idols  to  the  worship  of  the  true  God,  he  began 
to  try  and  do  something  for  Him  whose  love  and  grace 
he  had  experienced.  It  was  no  wonder  that  the  Church 
then  spread  rapidly  when  all  its  individual  members 
were  instinct  with  life,  and  every  one  considered 
himself  personally  responsible  to  labour  diligently 
for  God.  The  Church  of  Cenchreae  was  elaborately 
organised.  It  had  not  only  its  deacons,  it  had  also  its 
deaconesses,  one  of  whom,  Phoebe,  was  specially  kind 
and  useful  to  St.  Paul  upon  his  visits  to  that  busy  sea- 
port, and  is  by  him  commended  to  the  help  and  care 
of  the  Roman  Church  (Rom.  xvi.  i,  2). 

From  Cenchrese  St.  Paul,  Aquila,  and  Priscilla  sailed 


xviii.  19-21, 24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.         333 

for  Ephesus,  where,  as  we  have  already  hinted,  it  is 
most  likely  the  latter  pair  had  some  special  business 
avocations  which  led  them  to  stay  at  that  city.  They 
may  have  been  large  manufacturers  of  tents,  and  have 
had  a  branch  establishment  at  Ephesus,  which  was  then 
a  great  mercantile  emporium  for  that  part  of  Asia  Minor. 
An  incidental  remark  of  the  sacred  writer  "  having 
shorn  his  head  in  Cenchreae,  for  he  had  a  vow,"  has 
raised  a  controverted  question.  Some  refer  this  ex- 
pression to  Aquila,  and  I  think  with  much  the  greater 
probability.  It  was  customary  with  the  Jews  at  that 
time  when  in  any  special  danger  to  take  a  temporary 
Nazarite  vow,  binding  themselves  to  abstain  from  wine 
and  from  cutting  their  hair  till  a  certain  definite  period 
had  elapsed.  Then  when  the  fixed  date  had  arrived, 
the  hair  was  cut  off"  and  preserved  till  it  could  be 
burned  in  the  fire  of  a  sacrifice  offered  up  at  Jerusalem 
upon  the  individual's  next  visit  to  the  Holy  City.  The 
grammatical  order  of  the  words  naturally  refer  to 
Aquila  as  the  maker  of  this  vow ;  but  I  cannot  agree 
in  one  reason  urged  for  this  latter  theory.  Some  have 
argued  that  it  was  impossible  for  Paul  to  have  made 
this  vow ;  that  it  would,  in  fact,  have  been  a  return 
to  the  bondage  of  Judaism,  which  would  have  been 
utterly  inconsistent  on  his  part.  People  who  argue 
thus  do  not  understand  St.  Paul's  position  with  respect 
to  Jewish  rites  as  being  things  utterly  unimportant, 
and,  as  such,  things  which  a  wise  born  Jew  would  do 
well  to  observe  in  order  to  please  his  countrymen. 
If  St.  Paul  made  a  vow  at  Corinth  it  would  have  been 
simply  an  illustration  of  his  own  principle,  "To  the 
Jews  I  became  as  a  Jew,  in  order  that  I  might  gain 
the  Jews."  But  further,  I  must  say  that  the  taking  of 
a  vow,  though  derived  from  Judaism,  need  not  have 


334  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

necessarily  appeared  to  St,  Paul  and  the  men  of  his 
time  a  purely  Jewish  ceremony.  Vows,  in  fact,  naturally 
passed  over  from  Judaism  to  Christianity.^  Vows, 
indeed,  of  this  peculiar  character,  and  with  this  peculiar 
external  sign  of  long  hair,  are  no  longer  customary 
amongst  Christians ;  but  surely  special  vows  cannot  be 
said  to  have  gone  out  of  fashion,  when  we  consider  the 
wide  spread  of  the  teetotal  movement,  with  its  vows  iden- 
tical in  one  important  element  with  that  of  the  Nazarites  ! 
But  viewing  the  matter  from  a  still  wider  standpoint, 
people,  when  contending  thus,  forget  what  a  large  part 
the  tradition  of  ancient  customs  must  have  played  in 
the  life,  manners,  and  customs  of  St.  Paul.  All  his 
early  life  he  was  a  strict  Pharisaic  Jew,  and  down  to 
the  end  of  life  his  early  training  must  have  largely 
modified  his  habits.  To  take  but  one  instance,  pork 
was  the  common  and  favourite  food  of  the  Romans  at 
this  period.  Now  I  am  sure  that  St.  Paul  would  have 
vigorously  resisted  all  attempts  to  prevent  the  Gentile 
Christians  eating  bacon  or  ham ;  but  I  should  not 
be  in  the  least  surprised  if  St.  Paul,  trained  in  Phari- 
saic habits,  never  once  touched  a  food  he  had  been 
taught  to  abhor  from  his  earliest  youth.  Life  is  a 
continuous  thing,  and  the  memories  of  the  past  are  very 
powerful.     We  can  to  this  day  trace  among  ourselves 

'  Jeremy  Taylor,  in  his  Hoij'  Living,  in  his  chapter  on  Prayer,  has 
some  wise  remarks  on  vows.  He  includes  them  under  the  head  of 
Prayer  :  "  A  vow  to  God  is  an  act  of  prayer  and  a  great  degree  and 
instance  of  opportunity,  and  an  increase  of  duty  by  some  new  uncom- 
manded  instance,  or  some  more  eminent  degree  of  duty  or  frequency 
of  action,  or  earnestness  of  spirit  in  the  same.  And  because  it  hath 
pleased  God  in  all  ages  of  the  world  to  admit  of  intercourse  with  His 
servants  in  the  matter  of  vows,  it  is  not  ill  advice  that  we  make  vows 
to  God  in  those  cases  in  which  we  have  great  need  or  great  danger.' 
He  then  proceeds  to  lay  down  rules  and  cautions  for  making  vows. 


xviii.  19-21, 24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.         335 

many  customs  and  traditions  dating  back  to  the  times 
antecedent  to  the  Reformation,  and  much  farther.  The 
fires  still  lighted  on  St.  John's  Eve  throughout  Ireland, 
and  once  customary  in  Scotland,  are  survivals  of  the 
times  of  Druidical  paganism  in  these  islands.  The 
ceremonies  and  social  customs  of  Shrove  Tuesday  and 
Hallow  E'en  are  survivals  of  the  rude  mirth  of  our  pre- 
Reformation  forefathers,  on  the  nights  before  a  celebrated 
fast.  Ash  Wednesday,  in  one  case,  before  a  celebrated 
feast.  All  Saints'  Day,  in  the  other.  Or  perhaps  I  may 
take  another  instance  more  closely  analogous  still  which 
every  reader  can  verify  for  himself.  The  use  of  the 
Church  of  England  has  to  this  day  a  curious  instance 
of  the  power  of  tradition  as  opposed  to  written  law. 
There  is  a  general  rubric  placed  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  before  the  first  Lord's  Prayer.  It  runs  as 
follows  :  "  Then  the  minister  shall  kneel  and  say  the 
Lord's  Prayer  with  an  audible  voice ;  the  people  also 
kneeling  and  repeating  it  with  him,  both  here,  and 
wheresoever  else  it  is  used  in  Divine  Service."  This 
rubric  plainly  prescribes  that  clergy  and  people  shall 
always  say  the  Lord's  Prayer  conjointly.  And  yet,  let 
my  readers  go  into  any  church  of  the  Anglican  Com- 
munion on  Sunday  next,  I  care  not  what  the  tone  of  its 
theological  thought,  and  observe  the  first  Lord's  Prayer 
used  at  the  beginning  of  the  Communion  Service.  They 
will  find  that  this  general  rubric  is  universally  neglected, 
and  the  celebrating  priest  says  the  opening  Lord's 
Prayer  by  himself  with  no  voice  of  the  people  raised 
to  accompany  him.  Now  whence  comes  this  universal 
fact  ?  It  is  simply  an  illustration  of  the  strength  of 
tradition.  It  is  a  survival  of  the  practice  before  the 
Reformation  handed  down  by  tradition  to  the  present 
time,  and  over-riding  a  positive  and  written  law.     In 


336  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  days  before  the  Reformation,  as  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  of  the  present  day,  the  opening 
Dominical  or  Lord's  Prayer  in  the  Mass  was  said  by 
the  priest  alone.  When  the  service  was  translated 
into  English  the  old  custom  still  prevailed,  and  has 
lasted  to  the  present  day.^  This  was  only  human 
nature,  which  abhors  unnecessary  changes,  and  is  in- 
tensely conservative  of  every  practice  which  is  linked 
with  the  fond  memories  of  the  past.  This  human 
nature  was  found  strong  in  St.  Paul,  as  in  other  men, 
and  it  would  have  argued  no  moral  or  spiritual  weak- 
ness, no  desire  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  gospel 
liberties,  had  he,  instead  of  Aquila,  resorted  to  the 
old  Jewish  practice  and  bound  himself  by  a  vow  in 
connexion  with  some  special  blessing  which  he  had 
received,  or  some  special  danger  he  had  incurred. 
When  we  are  studying  the  Acts  we  must  never  forget 
that  Judaism  gave  the  tone  and  form,  the  whole  outer 
framework  to  Christianity,  even  as  England  gave  the 
outward  shape  and  form  to  the  constitutions  of  the 
United  States  and  her  own  numberless  colonies  through- 
out the  world.  St,  Paul  did  not  invent  a  brand  new 
religion,  as  some  people  think  ;  he  changed  as  little  as 
possible,  so  that  his  own  practice  and  worship  must 
have  been  to  mere  pagan  eyes  exactly  the  same  as 
that  of  the  Jews,  as  indeed  v/e  might  conclude  before- 
hand from  the  fact  that  the  Roman  authorities  seem 
to  have  viewed  the  Christians  as  a  mere  Jewish  sect 
down  to  the  close  of  the  second  century.^ 

'  See  Procter  on  the  Common  Prayer,  p.  212  ;  Canon  Evan  Daniel 
on  the  Prayer  Book,  pp.  87  and  300. 

*  See  on  this  subject  of  the  confusion  of  Christianity  with  Judaism 
by  the  Romans,  Wieseler's  Die  Christenverfolgungen  der  Cdsaren, 
pp    i-io. 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.         337 


I.  Let  US  now  take  a  rapid  survey  of  the  extensive 
journey  which  our  book  disposes  of  in  very  concise 
fashion.  St.  Paul  and  his  companions,  Aquila  and 
Priscilla,  Timothy  and  Silas,  sailed  from  Cenchreae  to 
Ephesus,  which  city  up  to  this  seems  to  have  been 
untouched  by  Christian  influences.  St.  Paul,  in  the 
earlier  portion  of  his  second  tour,  had  been  prohibited 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  from  preaching  in  Ephesus,  or  in 
any  portion  of  the  provinces  of  Asia  or  Bithynia. 
Important  as  the  human  eye  of  St.  Paul  may  have 
viewed  them,  still  the  Divine  Guide  of  the  Church  saw 
that  neither  Asia  nor  Bithynia,  with  all  their  magnificent 
cities,  their  accumulated  wealth,  and  their  political 
position,  were  half  so  important  as  the  cities  and 
provinces  of  Europe,  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  world's  conversion.  But  now  the  gospel  has 
secured  a  substantial  foothold  in  Europe,  has  taken  a 
firm  grasp  of  that  imperial  race  which  then  ruled  the 
world,  and  so  the  Apostle  is  permitted  to  visit  Ephesus 
for  the  first  time.  He  seems  to  have  then  paid  a 
mere  passing  visit  to  it,  lasting  perhaps  while  the 
ship  discharged  the  portion  of  her  cargo  destined  for 
Ephesus.  But  St.  Paul  never  allowed  time  to  hang  heavy 
on  his  hands  for  want  of  employment.  He  left  Aquila 
and  Priscilla  engaged  in  their  mercantile  transactions, 
and,  entering  himself  into  the  principal  synagogue, 
proceeded  to  expound  his  views.  These  do  not  seem 
to  have  then  aroused  any  opposition ;  nay,  the  Jews 
even  went  so  far  as  to  desire  him  to  tarry  longer  and 
open  out  his  doctrines  at  greater  length.  We  may 
conclude  from  this  that  St.  Paul  did  not  remain  during 
this  first  visit  much  beyond  one  Sabbath  day.  If  he 
had  bestowed  a  second  Sabbath  day  upon  the  Ephesian 
synagogue,  his  ideas  and  doctrines  would  have  been 

VOL.  II.  22 


338  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

made  so  clear  and  manifest  that  the  Jews  would  not 
have  required  much  further  exposition  in  order  to  see 
their  drift.  St.  Paul,  after  promising  a  second  visit  to 
them,  left  his  old  friends  and  associates,  Aquila  and 
his  wife,  with  whom  he  had  lived  for  nearly  two  years, 
at  Ephesus,  and  pushed  on  to  Csesarea,  a  town  which 
he  must  have  already  well  known,  and  with  which  he 
was  subsequently  destined  to  make  a  long  and  un- 
pleasant acquaintanceship,  arriving  at  Jerusalem  in 
time  probably  for  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  which  was 
celebrated  on  September  i6th,  a.d.  53.  Concerning 
the  details  of  that  visit  we  know  nothing.  Four  years 
at  least  must  have  elapsed  since  he  had  seen  James 
and  the  other  venerated  heads  of  the  Mother  Church. 
We  can  imagine  then  how  joyously  he  would  have 
told  them,  how  eagerly  they  would  have  heard  the  glad 
story  of  the  wonders  God  had  wrought  among  the 
Gentiles  through  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ.  After  a 
short  sojourn  at  Jerusalem  St.  Paul  returned  back  to 
Caesarea,  and  thence  went  on  to  Antioch,  the  original 
seat  of  the  Gentile  mission  for  the  propagation  of  the 
faith.  After  refreshing  himself  with  the  kindly  offices 
of  fraternal  intercourse  and  conversation  at  this  great 
Christian  centre,  where  broad  liberal  sentiment  and 
wide  Christian  culture,  free  from  any  narrow  prejudices, 
must  have  infused  a  tone  into  society  far  more  agree- 
able to  St.  Paul  than  the  unprogressive  Judaising  views 
which  flourished  in  Jerusalem,  St.  Paul  then  deter- 
mined to  set  off  upon  his  third  great  tour,  which  must 
have  begun  at  the  earliest  some  time  in  the  spring  of 
A.D.  54,  as  soon  as  the  snows  of  winter  had  passed 
away  and  the  passes  through  the  Taurus  Range  into 
the  central  regions  of  Asia  Minor  had  been  opened. 
We    know    nothing    more    concerning    the    extended 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  339 

journey  he  took  on  this  occasion.  He  seems  to  have 
avoided  towns  like  Lystra  and  Derbe,  and  to  have 
directed  his  march  straight  to  Galatia,  where  he  had 
sufficient  work  to  engage  all  his  thought.  We  have 
no  mention  of  the  names  of  the  particular  Churches 
where  he  laboured.  Ancyra,  as  it  was  then  called, 
Angora  as  it  is  now  named,  in  all  probability  demanded 
St.  Paul's  attention.  If  he  visited  it,  he  looked  as  the 
traveller  does  still  upon  the  temple  dedicated  to  the 
deity  of  Augustus  and  of  Rome,  the  ruins  of  which 
have  attracted  the  notice  of  every  modern  antiquary. 
Glad,  however,  as  we  should  have  been  to  gratify 
our  curiosity  by  details  like  these,  we  are  obliged  to 
content  ourselves  with  the  information  which  St.  Luke 
gives  us,  that  St.  Paul  "went  through  the  region 
of  Galatia  and  Phrygia,  in  order,  stablishing  all  the 
disciples,"  leaving  us  a  speaking  example  of  the  ener- 
gising power,  the  invigorating  effects,  of  a  visitation 
such  as  St.  Paul  now  conducted,  sustaining  the  weak, 
arousing  the  careless,  restraining  the  rash,  guiding  the 
whole  body  of  the  Church  with  the  counsels  of  sancti- 
fied wisdom  and  heavenly  prudence.  Then,  after  his 
Phrygian  and  Galatian  work  was  finished,  St.  Paul 
betook  himself  to  a  field  which  he  long  since  desired 
to  occupy,  and  determined  to  fulfil  the  promise  made 
a  year  previously  at  least  to  his  Jewish  friends  of  the 
Ephesian  Synagogue. 

II.  Now  we  come  to  the  foundation  of  the  Ephesian 
Church  some  time  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  54  a.d. 
Here  it  may  strike  some  reader  as  an  extraordinary 
thing  that  more  than  tv.'enty  years  after  the  Crucifixion 
Ephesus  was  as  yet  totally  untouched  by  the  gospel, 
so  that  the  tidings  of  salvation  were  quite  a  novel 
sound  in  the  great  Asiatic  capital.     People  sometimes 


340  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

think  of  the  primitive  Church  as  if,  after  the  Day  of 
Pentecost,  every  individual  Christian  rushed  off  to  preach 
in  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  world,  and  that  the 
whole  earth  was  evangelised  straight  off.  They  forget 
the  teaching  of  Christ  about  the  gospel  leaven,  and 
leaven  never  works  all  on  an  heap  as  it  were ;  it  is 
slow,  regular,  progressive  in  its  operations.  The 
tradition,  too,  that  the  apostles  did  not  leave  Jeru- 
salem till  twelve  years  after  His  ascension  ought  to 
be  a  sufficient  corrective  of  this  false  notion ;  and 
though  this  tradition  may  not  have  any  considerable 
historical  basis,  yet  it  shows  that  the  primitive  Church 
did  not  cherish  the  very  modern  idea  that  enormous 
and  immediate  successes  followed  upon  the  preach- 
ing of  the  gospel  after  Pentecost,  and  that  the  con- 
version of  vast  populations  at  once  occurred.  The 
case  was  exactly  contrary.  For  many  a  long  year 
nothing  at  all  was  done  towards  the  conversion  of 
the  Gentile  world,  and  then  for  many  another  long 
year  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  among  the  Gentiles 
entirely  depended  upon  St.  Paul  alone.  He  was  the 
one  evangelist  of  the  Gentiles,  and  therefore  it  is  no 
wonder  he  should  have  said  in  i  Cor.  i.  17,  "Christ 
sent  me  not  to  baptize,  but  to  preach  the  gospel." 
He  was  the  one  man  fitted  to  deal  with  the  preju- 
dices, the  ignorance,  the  sensuality,  the  grossness  with 
which  the  Gentile  world  was  overspread,  and  there- 
fore no  other  work,  no  matter  how  important,  was  to 
be  allowed  to  interfere  with  that  one  task  which  he 
alone  could  perform.  This  seems  to  me  the  explanation 
of  the  question  which  might  otherwise  cause  some 
difficulty,  how  was  it  that  the  Ephesians,  Jews  and 
Gentiles  alike,  inhabiting  this  distinguished  city,  were 
still   in    such  dire   ignorance   of  the  gospel   message 


xviii.  19-21, 24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.         341 

twenty  years  after  the  Ascension  ?  Now  let  us  come 
to  the  story  of  the  circumstances  amid  which  Ephesian 
Christianity  took  its  rise.  St.  Paul,  as  we  have  already 
said,  paid  a  passing  visit  to  Ephesus  just  a  year  before 
when  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  when  he  seems  to  have 
made  a  considerable  impression  in  the  synagogue. 
He  left  behind  him  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  who,  with 
their  household,  formed  a  small  Christian  congregation, 
meeting  doubtless  for  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  in  their  own  house  while  yet  frequenting  the 
stated  worship  of  the  synagogue.  This  we  conclude 
from  the  following  circumstance  which  is  expressly 
mentioned  in  Acts  xviii.  26.  Apollos,  a  Jew,  born  in 
Alexandria,  and  a  learned  man,  as  was  natural  coming 
from  that  great  centre  of  Greek  and  Oriental  culture, 
came  to  Ephesus.  He  had  been  baptized  by  some  of 
John's  disciples,  either  at  Alexandria  or  in  Palestine. 
It  may  very  possibly  have  been  at  Alexandria.  St. 
John's  doctrines  and  followers  may  have  spread  to 
Alexandria  b}'  that  time,  as  we  are  expressly  informed 
they  had  been  diffused  as  far  as  Ephesus  (see  ch. 
xix.  1-4).  Apollos,  when  he  came  to  Ephesus,  entered, 
like  St.  Paul,  into  the  synagogue,  and  "spake  and  taught 
carefully  the  things  concerning  Jesus,  knowing  only 
the  baptism  of  John."  He  knew  about  Jesus  Christ, 
but  with  an  imperfect  knowledge  such  merely  as  John 
himself  possessed.  This  man  began  to  speak  boldly 
in  the  synagogue  on  the  topic  of  the  Messiah  whom 
John  had  preached.  Aquila  and  Priscilla  were  present 
in  the  synagogue,  heard  the  disputant,  recognised  his 
earnestness  and  his  defects,  and  then,  having  taken 
him,  expounded  to  him  the  way  of  God  more  fully, 
initiating  him  into  the  full  mysteries  of  the  faith  by 
baptism  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 


342  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Ghost.^  This  incident  has  an  important  bearing  upon 
the  foundation  and  development  of  the  Ephesian  Church, 
but  it  bears  more  directly  still  upon  the  point  on  which 
we  have  been  dwelling,  Apollos  disputed  in  the  syna- 
gogues where  Aquila  and  Priscilla  heard  him,  so  that 

^  Meyer,  in  his  Commentary  on  ch.  xix.  5,  enunciates  the  following 
extraordinary  theory  about  Apollos,  which  plainly  shows  that,  valuable 
as  may  be  his  textual  criticism,  his  conception  of  Christian  doctrine  and 
of  Apostolic  Church  life  is  very  defective :  "  We  may  not  infer  from  this 
passage  that  the  disciples  of  John,  who  passed  over  to  Christianity, 
were  uniformly  re-baptized ;  for  in  the  case  of  the  apostles  who  passed 
over  from  John  to  Jesus  this  certainly  did  not  take  place  ;  and  even  as 
regards  Apollos  the  common  opinion  that  he  was  baptized  by  Aquila 
is  purely  arbitrary,  as  in  xviii.  26  his  instruction  in  Christianity,  and 
not  his  baptism,  is  narrated."  Again:  " Apollos  could  dispense  with 
re-baptism,  seeing  that  he,  with  his  fervid  spirit,  following  the  references 
of  John  to  Christ,  and  the  instruction  of  his  teachers,  penetrated  with- 
out any  new  baptismal  consecration  into  the  pneumatic  elements  of 
life."  Meyer  evidently  fails  to  grasp  what  the  sacrament  of  baptism 
was,  as  conceived  by  St.  Paul,  and  uses  the  most  dangerous  line  of  argu- 
ment, that  from  silence,  concluding  that,  because  there  is  no  mention 
of  the  Christian  baptism  of  Apollos,  therefore  such  a  baptism  never 
took  place.  But  this  is  not  all.  Meyer's  theory  cannot  possibly  explain 
why  baptism  was  necessary  for  Cornelius,  though  he  enjoyed  the  gift  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  while  it  was  not  necessary  for  Apollos,  "who  penetrated 
without  any  new  baptismal  consecration  into  the  pneumatic  element  of 
life."  Meyer  says,  indeed,  that  in  the  whole  New  Testament  there  is  no 
example  except  in  xix.  i  -5  of  the  re-baptism  of  a  disciple  of  John.  But 
then  in  the  Acts  and  Epistles,  where  alone  we  read  of  the  administra- 
tion of  Christian  baptism,  there  are  only  two  examples  of  the  admission  of 
John's  disciples.  In  one  case  twelve  such  were  admitted,  and  they  were 
all  baptized  by  Paul's  own  order.  In  the  case  of  Apollos  there  is 
silence.  Surely  the  sounder  conclusion  is  that  Christian  baptism  was 
administered  there  too,  though  nothing  is  said  about  it !  As  for  the 
apostles  not  being  baptized  with  Christian  baptism,  the  explanation  is 
not  far  to  seek.  Baptism  is  the  reception  of  a  disciple  into  covenant 
with  Christ  through  the  medium  of  water.  In  the  case  of  the  apostles 
this  reception  took  place  in  person,  and  not  through  any  medium.  In 
the  apostles'  case,  too,  there  is  another  consideration.  Meyer's  con- 
clusion is  simply  one  e  silentio  even  in  their  case.  We  know  not, 
however,  everything  that  Christ  did  as  regards  His  apostles. 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  343 


they  must  have  been  regular  worshippers    there   not- 
withstanding their  Christian  profession  and  their  close 
intercourse  with  St.  Paul  for  more  than  eighteen  months. 
After  a  little  time  further,  Apollos  desired  to  pass  over 
to  Greece.     The  little  Christian  Church  which  met  at 
Aquila's  house  told  him  of  the  wonders  they  had  seen 
and  heard  in  Achaia  and  of  the  flourishing  state  of  the 
Church  in  Corinth.     They  gave  him  letters  commenda- 
tory to  that  Church,  whither  Apollos  passed  over,  and 
rendered  such  valuable  help  that  his  name  a  year  or 
two  later  became  one  of  the  watchwords  of  Corinthian 
party  strife.     The  way  was  now  prepared  for  St.  Paul's 
great    mission    to    Ephesus,  exceeding    in    length  any 
mission  he  had  hitherto  conducted,   surpassing  in   its 
duration  of  three  years  the  time  spent  even  at  Corinth 
itself.     His  own  brief  visit  of  the  year  before,  the  visit 
and  work  of  the  Alexandrian  Jew,  the  quiet  conver- 
sations, the  holy  lives,  the  sanctified  examples  of  Aquila 
and   Priscilla,   these   had  done    the   preliminary  work. 
They   had    roused    expectation,    provoked    discussion, 
developed    thought.       Everything   was    ready    for    the 
great  masterful  teacher  to  step  upon  the  ground  and 
complete  the  work  which  he  had  already  so  auspiciously 
begun. 

I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the  roads  by  which 
St.  Paul  may  have  travelled  through  the  province  of 
Asia  on  this  eventful  visit,  nor  to  discuss  the  archi- 
tectural features,  or  the  geographical  position  of  the 
city  of  Ephesus.  These  things  I  shall  leave  to  the 
writers  who  have  treated  of  St.  Paul's  life.  I  now 
confine  myself  to  the  notices  inserted  by  St.  Luke 
concerning  the  Apostle's  Ephesian  work,  and  about  it 
I  note  that  upon  his  arrival  St.  Paul  came  in  contact 
with  a  small  congregation  of  the  disciples  of  John  the 


344  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


Baptist/  who  had  hitherto  escaped  the  notice  of  the 
small  Church  existing  at  Ephesus.  This  need  not 
excite  our  wonder.  We  are  apt  to  think  that  because 
Christianity  is  now  such  a  dominant  element  in  our  own 
intellectual  and  religious  atmosphere  it  must  always 
have  been  the  same.  Ephesus,  too,  was  then  an  immense 
city,  with  a  large  population  of  Jews,  who  may  have  had 
many  synagogues.  These  few  disciples  of  John  the 
Baptist  may  have  worshipped  in  a  synagogue  which 
never  heard  of  the  brief  visit  of  a  Cilician  Jew,  a  teacher 
named  Saul  of  Tarsus,  much  less  of  the  quiet  efforts 
of  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  the  tentmakers,  lately  come 
from  Corinth.  St.  Paul,  on  his  second  visit,  soon  came 
in  contact  with  these  men.  He  at  once  asked  them  a 
question  which  tested  their  position  and  attainments 
in  the  Divine  life,  and  sheds  for  us  a  vivid  light  upon 
apostolic  doctrine  and  practice.  "  Did  ye  receive  the 
Holy  Ghost  when  ye  believed  ?  "  is  plainly  an  inquiry 
whether  they  had  enjoyed  the  blessing  connected  with 
the  solemn  imposition  of  hands,  from  which  has  been 
derived  the  rite  of  confirmation,  as  I  showed  in  the 
previous  volume.  The  disciples  soon  revealed  the 
imperfect   character  of  their   religion    by  their  reply : 

'  The  movement  instituted  by  St.  John  the  Baptist  was  perpetuated  into 
the  second  century,  and  in  some  measure  developed  into,  or  connected 
itself  with,  the  sect  subsequently  called  the  Hemerobaptists.  The  history 
of  this  movement  from  apostolic  days  is  elaborately  traced  by  Bishop 
Lightfoot  in  his  Essay  on  the  Essenes,  contained  in  his  Colossians  and 
Philemon ;  see  especially  pp.  400-407,  to  which  we  must  refer  the  reader 
desirous  of  more  information.  The  Hemerobaptists  are  mentioned  in 
the  Clementine  Recognitions,  i.  54,  the  Cle7>ientine  Homilies,  ii.  23,  which 
date  from  about  200  A.D.,  and  in  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  vi.  6,  which 
may  be  put  down  as  a  century  later.  This  shows  the  continuity  of  the 
sect.  There  are  still  some  fragments  of  it  existing  in  Babylonia,  under 
the  name  of  Mandeans :  see  further  the  article  "  Sabians  "  in  Smith's 
Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  iv.  569-73. 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  345 

"  Nay,  we  did  not  so  much  as  hear  whether  the  Holy 
Ghost  was,"  words  which  led  St.  Paul  to  demand  what 
in  that  case  was  the  nature  of  their  baptism.  "  Into 
what  then  were  ye  baptized  ?  "  and  they  said,  "  Into 
John's  baptism." 

Now  the  simple  explanation  of  the  disciples'  ignorance 
was  that  they  had  been  baptized  with  John's  baptism, 
which  had  no  reference  to  or  mention  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  St.  Paul,  understanding  them  to  be  baptized 
disciples,  could  not  understand  their  ignorance  of  the 
personal  existence  and  present  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  till  he  learned  from  them  the  nature  of  their 
baptism,  and  then  his  surprise  ceased.  But  then  we 
must  observe  that  the  question  of  the  Apostle  astonished 
at  their  defective  state — "  Into  what  then  were  ye 
baptized  ? " — implies  that,  if  baptized  with  Christian 
baptism,  they  would  have  known  of  the  existence  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  therefore  further  implies  that  the 
baptismal  formula  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost,  was  of  universal  application  among  Chris- 
tians ;  for  surely  if  this  formula  were  not  universally 
used  by  the  Church,  many  Christians  might  be  in 
exactly  the  same  position  as  these  disciples  of  John, 
and  never  have  heard  of  the  Holy  Ghost !  ^  St.  Paul, 
having  expounded  the  difference  between  the  inchoate, 
imperfect,  beginning  knowledge,  of  the  Baptist,  and  the 
richer,  fuller  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  then  handed  them 
over  for  further  preparation  to  his  assistants,  by  whom, 
after  due  fasting  and  prayer,  they  were  baptized,^  and 
at  once  presented  to    the  Apostle  for   the    imposition 

'  See  my  remarks  on  this  topic  on  pp.  141,  142  of  my  first  volume 
on  Acts. 

-  See  the  Didache,  or  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  concerning  the 
methods  used  in  preparation  for  baptism. 


346  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  hands ;  when  the  Holy  Ghost  was  vouchsafed  in 
present  effects,  "  they  spake  with  tongues  and  prophe- 
sied," as  if  to  sanction  in  a  special  manner  the  decided 
action  taken  by  the  Apostle  on  this  occasion. 

The  details  concerning  this  affair,  given  to  us  by  the 
sacred  writer,  are  most  important.  They  set  forth  at 
greater  length  and  with  larger  fulness  the  methods 
ordinarily  used  by  the  Apostle  than  on  other  similar 
occasions.  The  Philippian  jailor  was  converted  and 
baptized,  but  we  read  nothing  of  the  imposition  of 
hands.  Dionysius  and  Damaris,  Aquila  and  Priscilla, 
and  many  others  at  Athens  and  Corinth,  were  con- 
verted, but  there  is  no  mention  of  either  baptism  or 
any  other  holy  rite.  It  might  have  been  very  possible 
to  argue  that  the  silence  of  the  writer  implied  utter 
contempt  of  the  sacraments  of  the  gospel  and  the  rite 
of  confirmation  on  these  occasions,  were  it  not  that 
we  have  this  detailed  account  of  the  manner  in  which 
St.  Paul  dealt  with  half-instructed,  unbaptized,  and 
unconfirmed  disciples  of  Christ  Jesus.  They  were  in- 
structed, baptized,  and  confirmed,  and  thus  introduced 
into  the  fulness  of  blessing,  required  by  the  discipline 
of  the  Lord,  as  ministered  by  his  faithful  servant.  If 
this  were  the  routine  observed  with  those  who  had  been 
taught  "  carefully  the  things  of  Jesus,  knowing  only 
the  baptism  of  John,"  how  much  more  would  it  have 
been  the  case  with  those  rescued  out  of  the  pollutions 
of  paganism  and  called  into  the  kingdom  of  light ! 

III.  After  this  favourable  beginning,  and  seeing  the 
borders  of  the  infant  Church  extended  by  the  union  of 
these  twelve  disciples,  St.  Paul,  after  his  usual  fashion, 
flung  himself  into  work  amongst  the  Jews  of  Ephesus 
upon  whom  he  had  previously  made  a  favourable  impres- 
sion.    He  was  well  received  for  a  time.     He  continued 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  347 

for  three  months  "reasoning  and  persuading  as  to  the 
things  concerning  the  kingdom  of  God."     But,  as  it  was 
elsewhere,  so  was  it  at  Ephesus,  the  offence  of  the  Cross 
told  in  the  long  run  upon  the  worshippers  of  the  syna- 
gogue.    The  original  Christian    Church    was    Jewish. 
Aquila   and    Priscilla,  Apollos    and  Timothy,   and  the 
disciples  of  John  the  Baptist  would  have  excited  no  re- 
sentment in  the  minds  of  the  Jews ;  but  when  St.  Paul 
began  to  open  out  the  hope  which  lay  for  Gentiles  as 
well  as  for  Jews  in  the  gospel  which  he  preached,  then 
the  objections  of  the  synagogue  were  multiplied,  riots 
and  disturbances  became,  as  elsewhere,  matters  of  daily 
occurrence,  and  the  opposition  became  at  last  so  bitter 
that,  as  at  Corinth,  so  here  again  at  Ephesus  the  Apostle 
was  obliged  to  separate  his  own  followers,  and  gather 
them  into  the  school  of  one  Tyrannus,  a  teacher  of  philo- 
sophy or  rhetoric,   whom  perhaps  he  had   converted, 
where  the  blasphemous  denunciations  against  the  Divine 
Way  which  he  taught  could  no  longer  be  heard.^     In 
this  school  or  lecture-hall  St.  Paul  continued  labouring 
for  more  than  two  years,  bestowing  upon  the  city  of 
Ephesus    a  longer  period  of  continuous  labour  than  he 
ever  vouchsafed  to  any  place  else.     We  have  St.  Paul's 
own  statement  as  to  his  method  of  life  at  this  period  in 
the  address  he  subsequently  delivered  to  the  elders  of 
Ephesus.     The  Apostle  pursued  at  Ephesus  the  same 
course  which  he  adopted  at  Corinth  in  one  important 
direction  at  least.     He  supported  himself  and  his  imme- 
diate companions,  Timothy  and  Sosthenes,  by  his  own 
labour,  and   that  we  may    presume    for    precisely    the 


'  See  pp.  32,  33  above  for  some  remarks  on  this  title,  the  Way, 
used  in  the  Acts  for  the  Gospel  Dispensation  or  the  Christian  Church. 
Cf.  also  ch.  ix.  2,  xix.  23,  xxii.  4,  xxiv.  14,  and  the  expression  the 
Way  of  Life  in  the  Didache. 


348  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

same  reason  at  Ephesus  as  at  Corinth.  He  desired 
to  cut  off  all  occasion  of  accusation  against  himself. 
Ephesus  was  a  city  devoted  to  commerce  and  to  magic. 
It  was  full  of  impostors  too,  many  of  them  Jewish,  who 
made  gain  out  of  the  names  of  angels  and  magical 
formulae  derived  from  the  pretended  wisdom  of  Solomon 
handed  down  to  them  by  secret  succession,  or  derived 
to  them  from  contact  with  the  lands  of  the  far-distant 
East.  St.  Paul  determined,  therefore,  that  he  would 
give  no  opportunity  of  charging  him  with  trading  upon 
the  credulity  of  his  followers,  or  working  with  an  eye 
to  covetous  or  dishonest  gains.  "  I  coveted  no  man's 
silver  or  gold  or  apparel.  Ye  yourselves  know  that 
these  hands  ministered  unto  my  necessities,  and  to 
them  that  were  with  me,"  is  the  description  he  gave 
of  the  manner  in  which  he  discharged  his  apostolic 
office  in  Ephesus,  when  addressing  the  elders  of  that 
city.  We  can  thus  trace  St.  Paul  labouring  at  his 
trade  as  a  tentmaker  for  nearly  a  period  of  five  years, 
combining  the  time  spent  at  Ephesus  with  that  spent  at 
Corinth.  Notwithstanding,  however,  the  attention  and 
energy  which  this  exercise  of  his  trade  demanded, 
he  found  time  for  enormous  evangelistic  and  pastoral 
work.  In  fact,  we  find  St.  Paul  nowhere  else  so  much 
occupied  with  pastoral  work  as  at  Ephesus.  Elsewhere 
we  see  the  devoted  evangelist,  rushing  in  with  the 
pioneers,  breaking  down  all  hindrances,  heading  the 
stormers  to  whom  was  committed  the  fiercest  struggle, 
the  most  deadly  conflict,  and  then  at  once  moving  into 
fresh  conflicts,  leaving  the  spoils  of  victory  and  the 
calmer  work  of  peaceful  pastoral  labours  to  others.  But 
here  in  Ephesus  we  see  St.  Paul's  marvellous  power 
of  adaptation.  He  is  at  one  hour  a  clever  artisan 
capable  of  gaining  support  sufficient  for  others  as  well 


xviii.  19-21, 24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  349 

as  for  himself;  then  he  is  the  skilful  controversialist 
"  reasoning  daily  in  the  school  of  one  Tyrannus"  ;  and 
then  he  is  the  indefatigable  pastor  of  souls  "  teaching 
publicly,  and  from  house  to  house,"  and  "  ceasing  not 
to  admonish  every  one  night  and  day  with  tears." 

But  this  was  not  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  burden  the 
Apostle  carried.  He  had  to  be  perpetually  on  the  alert 
against  Jewish  plots.  We  hear  nothing  directly  of 
Jewish  attempts  on  his  life  or  liberty  during  the  period 
of  just  three  years  which  he  spent  on  this  prolonged 
visit.  We  might  be  sure,  however,  from  our  previous 
experience  of  the  synagogues,  that  he  must  have  run 
no  small  danger  in  this  direction ;  but  then  when  we 
turn  to  the  same  address  we  hear  something  of  them. 
He  is  recalling  to  the  minds  of  the  Ephesian  elders  the 
circumstances  of  his  life  in  their  community  from  the 
beginning,  and  he  therefore  appeals  thus :  "  Ye  your- 
selves know  from  the  first  day  that  I  set  foot  in  Asia, 
after  what  manner  I  was  with  you  all  the  time,  serving 
the  Lord  with  all  lowliness  of  mind,  and  with  tears, 
and  with  trials  which  befell  me  with  plots  of  the  JewsJ* 
Ephesus  again  was  a  great  field  wherein  he  personally 
worked  ;  it  was  also  a  great  centre  for  missionary  opera- 
tions which  he  superintended.  It  was  the  capital  of  the 
province  of  Asia,  the  richest  and  most  important  of  all 
the  Roman  provinces,  teeming  with  resources,  abounding 
in  highly  civilised  and  populous  cities,  connected  with 
one  another  by  an  elaborate  network  of  admirably 
constructed  roads.  Ephesus  was  cut  out  by  nature 
and  by  art  alike  as  a  missionary  centre  whence  the 
gospel  should  radiate  out  into  all  the  surrounding 
districts.  And  so  it  did.  "  All  they  which  dwelt  in 
Asia  heard  the  word  of  the  Lord,  both  Jews  and 
Greeks,"  is  the  testimony  of  St.  Luke  with  respect  to 


350  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  wondrous  progress  of  the  gospel,  not  in  Ephesus 
alone,  but  also  throughout  all  the  province,  a  statement 
which  we  find  corroborated  a  little  lower  down  in  the 
same  nineteenth  chapter  by  the  independent  testimony 
of  Demetrius  the  silversmith,  who,  when  he  was 
endeavouring  to  stir  up  his  fellow-craftsmen  to  active 
exertions  in  defence  of  their  endangered  trade,  says, 
"  Ye  see  and  hear  that  not  alone  at  Ephesus,  but  almost 
throughout  all  Asia,  this  Paul  hath  persuaded  and 
turned  away  much  people."  St.  Paul's  disciples 
laboured,  too,  in  the  other  cities  of  Asia,  as  Epaphras 
for  instance  in  Colossae.  And  St.  Paul  himself,  we  may 
be  certain,  bestowed  the  gifts  and  blessings  of  his 
apostolic  office  by  visiting  these  local  Churches,  as  far 
as  he  could  consistently  with  the  pressing  character  of 
his  engagements  in  Ephesus.^  But  even  the  superin- 
tendence of  vast  missions  throughout  the  province  of 
Asia  did  not  exhaust  the  prodigious  labours  of  St.  Paul. 
He  perpetually  bore  about  in  his  bosom  anxious 
thoughts  for  the  welfare,  trials,  and  sorrows  of  the 
numerous  Churches  he  had  established  in  Europe  and 
Asia  alike.  He  was  constant  in  prayers  for  them, 
mentioning  the  individual   members  by  name,  and  he 

'  Bishop  Lightfoot,  Colossians,  Inixod.,  p.  30,  has  some  good  remarks 
bearing  on  this  topic  :  "  How  or  when  the  conversion  of  the  Colossians 
took  place  we  have  no  direct  information.  Yet  it  can  hardly  be  wrong 
to  connect  the  event  with  St.  Paul's  long  sojourn  at  Ephesus.  Here  he 
remained  preaching  for  three  whole  years.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that 
during  this  period  he  paid  short  visits  to  other  neighbouring  cities  of 
Asia  ;  but  if  so,  the  notices  in  the  Acts  oblige  us  to  suppose  these 
interruptions  to  his  residence  in  Ephesus  to  have  been  slight  and 
infrequent.  Yet,  though  the  Apostle  himselfi  was  stationary  in  the 
capital,  the  Apostolic  influence  and  teaching  spread  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  city  and  its  immediate  neighbourhood.  It  was  hardly  an 
exaggeration  when  Demetrius  declared  that  '  almost  throughout  all 
Asia  this  Paul  had  persuaded  and  turned  away  much  pe(;ple.'     The 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  351 


was  unwearied  in  keeping  up  communications  with  them, 
either  by  verbal  messages  or  by  written  epistles,  one 
specimen  of  which  remains  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  written  to  them  from  Ephesus,  and  showing 
us  the  minute  care,  the  comprehensive  interest,  the 
intense  sympathy  which  dwelt  within  his  breast  with 
regard  to  his  distant  converts  all  the  while  that  the 
work  at  Ephesus,  controversial,  evangelistic  and  pastoral, 
to  say  nothing  at  all  of  his  tentmaking,  was  making 
the  most  tremendous  demands  on  body  and  soul  alike, 
and  apparently  absorbing  all  his  attention.  It  is  only 
when  we  thus  realise  bit  by  bit  what  the  weak,  delicate, 
emaciated  Apostle  must  have  been  doing,  that  we  are 
able  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  of  his  own  words  to  the 
Corinthians :  "  Besides  those  things  that  are  without, 
there  is  that  which  presseth  upon  me  daily,  anxiety 
for  all  the  Churches." 

This  lengthened  period  of  intense  activity  of  mind 
and  body  terminated  in  an  incident  v/hich  illustrates 
the  peculiar  character  of  St.  Paul's  Ephesian  ministry. 
Ephesus  was  a  town  where  the  spiritual  and  moral 
atmosphere  simply  reeked  with  the  fumes,  ideas,  and 
practices  of  Oriental  paganism,  of  which  magical  in- 
sacred  historian  himself  uses  equally  strong  language  in  describing  the 
effects  of  the  Apostle's  p"eaching  :  '  All  they  which  dwelt  in  Asia  heard 
the  word  of  the  Lord,  both  Jews  and  Greeks.'  In  accordance  with 
these  notices  the  Apostle  himself,  in  an  Epistle  written  during  this 
sojourn,  sends  salutations  to  Corinth,  not  from  the  Church  of  Ephesus 
specially,  as  might  have  been  anticipated,  but  from  the  '  Churches  of 
Asia'  generally  (i  Cor.  xvi.  19).  St.  Luke,  it  should  be  observed, 
ascribes  this  dissemination  of  the  gospel  not  to  journeys  undertaken  by 
the  Apostle,  but  to  his  preaching  at  Ephesus  itself.  Thither,  as  to  the 
metropolis  of  Western  Asia,  would  flock  crowds  from  all  the  towns  and 
villages  far  and  near.  Thence  they  would  carry  away,  each  to  his  own 
neighbourhood,  the  spiritual  treasure  which  they  had  so  unexpectedly 
found.' 


352  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

cantations  formed  the  predominant  feature.  Magic 
prevailed  all  over  the  pagan  world  at  this  time.  In 
Rome,  however,  magical  practices  were  always  more 
or  less  under  the  ban  of  public  opinion,  though  at 
times  resorted  to  even  by  those  whose  office  called 
upon  tiiem  to  suppress  illegal  actions,  A  couple  of 
years  before  the  very  time  at  which  we  have  arrived, 
workers  in  magic,  among  whom  were  included  astro- 
logers, or  mathematicians,  as  the  Roman  law  called 
them,  were  banished  from  Rome  simultaneously  with 
the  Jews,  who  always  enjoyed  an  unenviable  notoriety 
for  such  occult  practices.^  In  Asia  Minor  and  the  East 
they  flourished  at  this  time  under  the  patronage  of 
religion,  and  continued  to  flourish  in  all  the  great  cities 
down  to  Christian  times.  Christianity  itself  could  not 
wholly  banish  magic  which  retained  its  hold  upon 
the  half-converted  Christians  who  flocked  into  the 
Church  in  crowds  during  the  second  half  of  the  fourth 
century ;  and  we  learn  from  St.  Chrysostom  himself, 
that  when  a  young  man  he  had  a  narrow  escape  for 
his  life  owing  to  the  continuance  of  magical  practices 
in  Antioch,  more  than  three  hundred  years  after  St. 
Paul.^     It  is  no  wonder   that  when    Diana's   worship 

*  I  allude,  of  course,  to  the  decree  of  Claudius  against  the  Jews  in 
A.D.  52,  to  which  Suetonius  (_C/azidms,  25)  and  Dio  Cassius,  Ix.  6, 
refer  ;  cf.  Tacitus,  Annals,  xii.  52,  and  Lewin's  Fasti  Sacri,  A.D.  52. 

'^  The  story  is  an  interesting  one.  It  will  be  found  in  Stephens' 
Life  of  St.  Chrysostom,  p.  61.  The  Emperor  Valens  had  discovered 
that  some  of  his  enemies  had  been  endeavouring,  through  magical 
contrivances  something  like  table-rapping,  to  spell  out  the  name  of  his 
successor,  and  had  succeeded  so .  far  that  they  had  found  out  the  first 
part  of  the  name  as  Theod,  but  the  oracle  could  tell  nothing  more. 
The  jealous  Emperor  ordered  every  prominent  man  with  the  names 
Theodore  or  Theodosius  to  be  slain,  vainly  thinking  to  kill  his  own 
successor.  He  also  ordered  every  one  found  with  magical  books  in 
their  possession  to  be  at  once  slain.     Chrysostom  and  a  friend  were 


xviii.  19-21,  24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  353 

reigned  supreme  at  Ephesus,  magical  practices  should 
also  flourish  there.  If,  however,  there  existed  a  special 
development  of  the  power  of  evil  at  Ephesus,  God  also 
bestowed  a  special  manifestation  of  Divine  power  in 
the  person  and  ministry  of  St.  Paul,  as  St.  Luke 
expressly  declares  :  "God  wrought  special  miracles  by 
the  hands  of  Paul,  insomuch  that  unto  the  sick  were 
carried  away  from  his  body  handkerchiefs  or  aprons, 
and  the  diseases  departed  from  them,  and  the  evil  spirits 
departed  from  them."  This  passage  has  been  often 
found  a  stumbling-block  by  many  persons.  They  have 
thought  that  it  has  a  certain  legendary  air  about  it,  as 
they  in  turn  think  that  there  is  a  certain  air  of  legend 
about  the  similar  passage  in  Acts  v.  12-16,  which  makes 
much  the  same  statement  about  St.  Peter.  When 
writing  about  this  latter  passage  in  my  previous  volume, 
p.  230,  I  offered  some  suggestions  which  lessen,  if  they 


walking  in  a.d.  374  on  the  banks  of  the  Orontes  when  they  saw  a  book 
floating  down  the  stream.  They  stretched  forth  and  rescued  it,  when, 
seeing  that  it  was  a  magical  book,  they  at  once  flung  it  back  into  the 
river,  and  not  a  moment  too  soon,  as  just  then  a  police  officer  on 
detective  duty  appeared  on  the  scene,  from  whom  a  moment  earlier 
they  could  not  have  escaped.  St.  Chrysostom  always  regarded  this  as 
oneof  thegreafescapes  of  his  life:  see  Art.  "Chrysostom"  mDict.  Christ. 
Biog.,  vol.  i.,  p.  520,  and  his  own  reference  to  the  escape  in  his  38th 
Homily  on  the  Acts,  translated  in  the  Oxford  Library  of  the  Fathers. 
Mr.  Stephens,  l.c.,  gives  an  account  of  the  magical  rites  and  their  cere- 
monial, which  was  doubtless  much  the  same  in  A.D.  374  as  in  A.D.  54, 
whence  we  take  a  brief  extract:  "The  twenty-four  letters  of  the 
alphabet  were  arranged  at  intervals  round  the  rim  of  a  kind  of  charger, 
which  was  placed  on  a  tripod  consecrated  by  magic  songs  and  frequent 
ceremonies.  The  diviner,  habited  as  a  heathen  priest,  in  linen  robes, 
sandals,  and  with  a  fillet  wreathed  about  his  head,  chanted  a  hymn  to 
Apollo,  the  god  of  prophecy,  while  a  ring  in  the  centre  of  the  charger 
was  slipped  rapidly  round  a  slender  thread.  The  letters  in  front  of 
which  the  ring  successively  stopped  indicated  the  character  of  the 
oracle." 

VOL.  IL  23 


554  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


do  not  quite  take  away,  the  difficulty ;  to  these  I  shall 
now  only  refer  my  readers.  But  I  think  we  can  see  a 
local  reason  for  the  peculiar  development  or  manifestation 
of  miraculous  power  through  St.  Paul.  The  devil's  seat 
was  just  then  specially  at  Ephesus,  so  far  as  the  great 
province  of  Asia  was  concerned.  The  powers  of  evil 
had  concentrated  all  their  force  and  all  their  wealth  of 
external  grandeur,  intellectual  cleverness,  and  spiritual 
trickery  in  order  to  lead  men  captive ;  and  there  God, 
in  order  that  He  might  secure  a  more  striking  victory 
for  truth  upon  this  magnificent  stage,  armed  His  faithful 
servant  with  an  extraordinary  development  of  the  good 
powers  of  the  world  to  come,  enabling  him  to  work 
special  wonders  in  the  sight  of  the  heathen.  Can  we 
not  read  an  echo  of  the  fearful  struggle  just  then  waged 
in  the  metropolis  of  Asia  in  words  addressed  some  years 
later  to  the  membeis  of  the  same  Church,  "For  our 
wrestling  is  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  the 
principalities,  against  the  powers,  against  the  world- 
rulers  of  this  darkness,  against  the  spiritual  hosts 
of  wickedness  in  the  heavenly  places "  ?  We  make 
a  great  mistake  when  we  think  of  the  apostles  as 
working  miracles  when  and  as  they  liked.  At  times 
their  evangelistic  work  seems  to  have  been  conducted 
without  any  extraordinary  manifestations,  and  then  at 
other  times,  when  the  power  of  Satan  was  specially 
put  forth,  God  displayed  His  special  strength,  enabling 
His  servants  to  work  wonders  and  signs  in  His  Name. 
It  was  much  the  same  as  in  the  Old  Testament.  The 
Old  Testament  miracles  will  be  found  to  cluster  them- 
selves round  the  deliverance  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt, 
and  its  Reformation  at  the  hand  of  Elijah.  So,  too, 
the  recorded  miracles  of  the  apostles  will  be  found  to 
gather   round  St.    Peter's  earlier  work  in   Jerusalem, 


xviii.  19-21, 24-26;  xix.  I.]     THE  EPHESIAN  CHURCH.  355 

where  Satan  strove  to  counter-work  God's  designs  in 
one  way,  and  St.  Paul's  ministry  in  Ephesus,  where 
Satan  strove  to  counter-work  them  in  another  way. 
One  incident  at  Ephesus  attracted  special  attention. 
There  was  a  priestly  family,  consisting  of  seven  sons, 
belonging  to  the  Jews  at  Ephesus.  Their  father  had 
occupied  high  position  among  the  various  courses  which 
in  turn  served  the  Temple,  even  as  Zacharias,  the  father 
of  the  Baptist,  did.  These  men  observed  the  power 
with  which  St.  Paul  dealt  with  human  spirits  dis- 
ordered by  the  powers  of  evil,  using  for  that  purpose 
the  sacred  name  of  Jesus.  They  undertook  to  use 
the  same  sacred  invocation ;  but  it  proved,  like  the 
censers  of  Korah,  Dathan  and  Abiram,  a  strange  fire 
kindled  against  their  own  souls.  The  man  possessed 
by  the  evil  spirit  recognised  not  their  presumptuous 
efforts,  but  attacked  them,  and  did  them  serious  bodily 
injury.  This  circumstance  spread  the  fame  of  the  man 
of  God  wider  and  wider.  The  power  of  magic  and  of 
the  demons  fell  before  him,  even  as  the  image  of  Dagon 
fell  before  the  Ark.  Many  of  the  nominal  believers  in 
Christianity  had  still  retained  their  magical  practices 
as  of  yore,  even  as  nominal  Christians  retained  them 
in  the  days  of  St.  Chrysostom.  The  reality  of  St.  Paul's 
power,  demonstrated  by  the  awful  example  of  Sceva's 
sons,  smote  them  in  their  inmost  conscience.  They 
came,  confessed  their  deeds,  brought  their  magical 
books  together,^  and  gave  the  greatest  proof  of  their 


'  The  magical  books  thus  consigned  to  the  flames  by  the  Christian 
believers  who  practised  magic  were  filled  with  figures  or  characters 
technically  called  "  Ephesian  letters,"  rpct^/xara 'E^^trta.  These  were 
mystic  characters  and  strange  words  which  were  engraven  on  the 
crown,  zone,  and  feet  of  the  goddess.  Clement  of  Alexandria  discusses 
their  use,  and  says  the  Greeks  were  greatly  addicted  to  them,  in  his 


356  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

honest  convictions  ;  for  they  burned  them  in  the  sight 
of  all,  and  counting  the  price  thereof  found  it  fifty  thou- 
sand pieces  of  silver,  or  more  than  two  thousand  pounds 
of  our  money.  "  So  mightily  grew  the  word  of  the 
Lord  and  prevailed "  in  the  very  chosen  seat  of  the 
Ephesian  Diana. 

Stromata,  v.  8,  as  translated  in  Clement's  works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  247,  in 
Clark's  Ante-Nicene  Library.  The  same  use  of  curious  mystic  words 
passed  over  to  the  Manichaeans  and  other  secret  sects  of  mediaeval 
times.  See  also  Guhl's  Ephesiaca,  p.  94  (Berlin,  1843),  where  all  the 
authorities  on  this  curious  subject  are  collected  together.  Conybeare 
and  Howson,  ch.  xiv.,  give  them  from  Guhl  in  a  handy  shape. 
Great  quantities  of  these  "Ephesian  letters"  have  been  found  among 
the  Fayum  Manuscripts  discovered  in  Egypt,  which  almost  uni- 
versally make  a  large  use  of  the  name  lao  or  Jehovah,  showing 
their  contact  with  Judaism. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT  .AND  A  PRUDENT  TOWN  CLERK. 

"  About  that  time  there  arose  no  small  stir  concerning  the  Way.  For 
a  certain  man  named  Demetrius,  a  silversmith,  v/hich  made  silver  shrines 
of  Diana,  brought  no  little  business  unto  the  craftsmen  ;  whom  he 
gathered  together,  with  the  workmen  of  like  occupation,  and  said,  Sirs, 
ye  know  that  by  this  business  we  have  our  wealth  And  ye  see  and 
hear,  that  not  alone  at  Ephesus,  but  almost  throughout  all  Asia,  this 
Paul  hath  persuaded  and  turned  away  much  people,  saying  that  they  be 
no  gods,  which  are  made  with  hands  ;  and  not  only  is  there  danger 
that  this  our  trade  come  into  disrepute ;  but  also  that  the  temple  of  the 
great  goddess  Diana  be  made  of  no  account,  and  that  she  should  even 
be  deposed  from  her  magnificence,  whom  all  Asia  and  the  world 
worshippeth." — Acts  xix.  23-8. 

ST.  PAUL'S  labours  at  Ephesus  covered,  as  he  informs 
us  himself,  when  addressing  the  elders  of  that  city, 
a  space  of  three  years.  The  greater  portion  of  that 
period  had  now  expired,  and  had  been  spent  in  peaceful 
labours  so  far  as  the  heathen  world  and  the  Roman 
authorities  were  concerned.  The  Jews,  indeed,  had 
been  very  troublesome  at  times.  It  is  in  all  proba- 
bility to  them  and  their  plots  St.  Paul  refers  when 
in  I  Cor.  xv.  32  he  says,  "  If  after  the  manner  of  men 
I  fought  with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  what  doth  it  profit 
me  ?  "  as  the  unbelieving  Gentiles  do  not  seem  to  have 
raised  any  insurrection  against  his  teaching  till  he  felt 
his  work  was  done,  and  he  was,  in  fact,  preparing  to 
leave  Ephesus.     Before,  however,  we  proceed  to  discuss 

357 


3S8  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  startling  events  which  finally  decided  his  immediate 
departure,  we  must  consider  a  brief  passage  which 
connects  the  story  of  Sceva's  sons  and  their  impious 
temerity  with  that  of  the  silversmith  Demetrius  and  the 
Ephesian  riot. 

The  incident  connected  with  Sceva's  sons  led  to 
the  triumph  over  the  workers  in  magic,  when  the  secret 
professors  of  that  art  came  and  publicly  acknowledged 
their  hidden  sins,  proving  their  reality  by  burning  the 
instruments  of  their  wickedness.  Here,  then,  St.  Luke 
inserts  a  notice  which  has  proved  to  be  of  the  very 
greatest  importance  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Let  us  insert  it  in  full  that  we  may  see  its 
bearing:  "Now  after  these  things  were  ended,  Paul 
purposed  in  the  spirit,  when  he  had  passed  through 
Macedonia  and  Achaia,  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  saying.  After 
I  have  been  there,  I  must  also  see  Rome.  And  having 
sent  into  Macedonia  two  of  them  that  ministered  unto 
him,  Timothy  and  Erastus,  he  himself  stayed  in  Asia 
for  a  while."  This  passage  tells  us  that  St.  Paul,  after 
his  triumph  over  the  practices  of  magic,  and  feeling  too 
that  the  Church  had  been  effectually  cleansed,  so  far  as 
human  foresight  and  care  could  effect  it,  from  the  cor- 
roding effects  of  the  prevalent  Ephesian  vice,  now  deter- 
mined to  transfer  the  scene  of  his  labours  to  Macedonia 
and  Achaia,  wishing  to  visit  those  Churches  which  five 
years  before  he  had  founded.  It  was  full  five  years, 
at  least,  since  he  had  seen  the  Philippian,  Thessalonian, 
and  Beroean  congregations.  Better  than  three  years 
had  elapsed  since  he  had  left  Corinth,  the  scene  of  more 
prolonged  work  than  he  had  ever  bestowed  on  any 
other  city  except  Ephesus.  He  had  heard  again  and 
again  from  all  these  places,  and  some  of  the  reports, 
especially   those    from    Corinth,    had    been    very    dis- 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  359 

quieting.  The  Apostle  wished,  therefore,  to  go  and  see 
for  himself  how  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  Macedonia 
and  Achaia  were  faring.  He  next  wished  to  pay  a  visit 
to  Jerusalem  to  consult  with  his  brethren,  and  then  felt 
his  destiny  pushing  him  still  westwards,  desiring  to  see 
Rome,  the  world's  capital,  and  the  Church  which  had 
sprung  up  there,  of  which  his  friends  Priscilla  and 
Aquila  must  have  told  him  much.  Such  seems  to  have 
been  his  intentions  in  the  spring  of  the  year  57,  to 
which  his  three  years'  sojourn  in  Ephesus  seems  now 
to  have  brought  him. 

The  interval  of  time  covered  by  the  two  verses 
which  I  have  quoted  above  is  specially  interesting, 
because  it  was  just  then  that  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  was  written.  All  the  circumstances  and 
all  the  indications  of  time  which  the  Epistle  itself  offers 
conspire  to  fix  the  writing  of  it  to  this  special  date  and 
place.  The  Epistle,  for  instance,  refers  to  Timothy  as 
having  been  already  sent  into  Macedonia  and  Greece  : 
"  For  this  cause  have  I  sent  unto  you  Timothy,  who 
shall  put  you  in  remembrance  of  my  ways  which  be 
in  Christ"  (i  Cor.  iv.  17).  In  Acts  xix.  22  we  have 
it  stated,  "  Having  sent  into  Macedonia  Timothy  and 
Erastus."  The  Epistle  again  plainly  tells  us  the  very 
season  of  the  year  in  which  it  was  written.  The 
references  to  the  Passover  season — "  For  our  passover 
also  hath  been  sacrificed,  even  Christ ;  wherefore  let 
us  keep  the  feast " — are  words  which  naturally  were 
suggested  by  the  actual  celebration  of  the  Jewish  feast, 
to  a  mind  like  St.  Paul's,  which  readily  grasped  at  every 
passing  allusion  or  chance  incident  to  illustrate  his 
present  teaching.  Timothy  and  Erastus  had  been  de- 
spatched in  the  early  spring,  as  soon  as  the  passes  and 
roads  were  thoroughly  open  and  navigation  established. 


36o  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


The  Passover  in  a.d.  57  happened  on  April  7th,  and 
the  Apostle  fixes  the  exact  date  of  the  First  Epistle  to 
Corinth,  when  in  the  sixteenth  chapter^and  eighth  verse 
he  says  to  the  Corinthians,  "  I  will  tarry  at  Ephesus 
until  Pentecost."  I  merely  refer  now  to  this  point  to 
illustrate  the  vastness  of  the  Apostle's  labours,  and  to 
call  attention  to  the  necessity  for  comparing  together 
the  Acts  and  the  Epistles  in  the  minute  manner  exem- 
plified by  Paley  in  the  Horce  PauUnce,  if  we  wish  to 
gain  a  complete  view  of  a  Hfe  like  St.  Paul's,  so 
completely  consecrated  to  one  great  purpose.^ 

Man  may  propose,  but  even  an  apostle  cannot  dis- 
pose of  his  fate  as  he  will,  or  foretell  under  ordinary 
circumstances  how  the  course  of  events  will  affect  him. 
St.  Paul  intended  to  stay  at  Ephesus  till  Pentecost, 
which  that  year  happened  on  May  28th.  Circumstances 
however  hastened  his  departure.  We  have  been  con- 
sidering the  story  of  St.  Paul's  residence  in  Ephesus, 
but  hitherto  we  have  not  heard  one  word  about  the 
great  Ephesian  deity,  Diana,  as  the  Romans  called 
her,  or  Artemis,  as  St.  Luke,  according  to  the  ordinary 
local  use,  correctly  calls  her  in  the  Greek  text  of 
the  Acts,  or  Anaitis,  as  her  ancient  name  had  been 
from  early  times  at  Ephesus  and  throughout  Asia 
Minor.^     If  this  riot  had  not  happened,  if  our  attention 


'  This  subject  properly  belongs  to  commentators  on  I  Corinthians. 
Paley,  in  Horm  Paulina,  ch.  iii.,  and  Dr.  Marcus  Dods,  in  his  Intro- 
duction to  the  New  Testament,  pp.  104,  105,  set  forth  the  evidence  in  a 
convenient  shape.  I  may  remark  that  here,  as  elsewhere,  I  adopt  in 
the  main  Mr.  Lewin's  chronology,  as  contained  in  his  Fasti  Sacri. 
Without  pledging  myself  to  agree  in  all  his  details,  his  scheme  forms 
a  good  working  hypothesis,  on  which  a  writer  can  work  when  com- 
posing an  expositor's  commentary,  not  one  for  professed  critics  or 
profound  scholars. 

-  The  student  may  consult  on  the  identification  of  Artemis  and  the 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  361 


had  not  been  thus  called  to  Diana  and  her  worship, 
there  might  have  been  a  total  blank  in  St.  Luke's 
narrative  concerning  this  famous  deity,  and  her  equally 
famous  temple,  which  was  at  the  time  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world.  And  then  some  scoffers  reading 
in  ancient  history  concerning  the  wonders  of  this 
temple,  and  finding  the  records  of  modern  discoveries 
confirming  the  statements  of  antiquity  might  have  trium- 
phantly pointed  to  St.  Luke's  silence  about  Diana  and 
the  Ephesian  temple  as  a  proof  of  his  ignorance.  A 
mere  passing  riot  alone  has  saved  us  from  this  diffi- 
culty. Now  this  case  well  illustrates  the  danger  of 
arguing  from  silence.  Silence  concerning  any  special 
point  is  sometimes  used  as  a  proof  that  a  particular 
writer  knew  nothing  about  it.  But  this  is  not  the 
sound  conclusion.  Silence  proves  in  itself  nothing 
more  than  that  the  person  who  is  silent  either  had 
no  occasion  to  speak  upon  that  point  or  else  thought 
it  wiser  or  more  expedient  to  hold  his  tongue.  Josephus, 
for  instance,  is  silent  about  Christianity ;  but  that  is 
no  proof  that  Christianity  did  not  exist  in  his  time,  or 
that  he  knew  nothing  about  it.  His  silence  may  simply 
have  arisen  because  he  found  Christianity  an  awkward 
fact,  and  not  knowing  how  to  deal  with  it  he  left  it 
alone.  It  is  well  to  bear  this  simple  law  of  historical 
evidence  in  mind,  for  a  great  many  of  the  popular 
objections  to  the  sacred  narratives,  both  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  are  based  upon  the  very  dangerous 
ground  of  silence  alone.^     Let  us,  however,  return  to 

Oriental  or  Persian  deity  Ana'iiis,  the  Revue  Archeologique  for  1885,  vol.  ii., 
pp.  105-I15,  and  Derenbourg  and  Saglio's  Diet,  des  Antiq.,  s.v.  Diana. 
'  This  argument  may  be  pressed  further.  The  silence  which  we 
observe  in  much  of  second-century  literature  about  the  New  Testament 
Canon  and  Episcopacy  is  of  the  same  character.     The  best  known  and 


362  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Diana  of  the  Ephesians.  The  worship  of  the  goddess 
Artemis  dominated  the  whole  city  of  Ephesus/  and 
helped  to  shape  the  destinies  of  St.  Paul  at  this  season, 
for  while  intending  to  stay  at  Ephesus  till  Pentecost 
at  the  end  of  May,  the  annual  celebration  of  Artemisia, 
the  feast  of  the  patron  deity  of  the  city,  happened,  of 
which  celebration  Demetrius  took  advantage  to  raise  a 
disturbance  which  hastened  St.  Paul's  departure  into 
Macedonia, 

We  have  now  cleared  the  way  for  the  consideration 
of  the  narrative  of  the  riot,  which  is  full  of  the  most 
interesting  information  concerning  the  progress  of  the 
gospel,  and  offers  us  the  most  wonderful  instances  of 
the  minute  accuracy  of  St.  Luke,  which  again  have 
been  illustrated  and  confirmed  in  the  fullest  manner  by 
the  researches  so  abundantly  bestowed  upon  Ephesus 
within  the  lifetime  of  the  present  generation.  Let  us 
take  the  narrative  in  the  exact  order  given  us  by 
St.  Luke:  "About  that  time  there  arose  no  small  stir 
about  the  Way."  But  why  about  that  special  time  ? 
We  have  already  said  that  here  we  find  an  indication 
of  the  date  of  the  riot.  It  must  have  happened  during 
the  latter  part  of  April,  a.d.  57,  and  we  know  that 
at  Ephesus  almost  the  whole  month  of  April,  or 
Artemisius,  was  dedicated  to  the  honour  and  worship  of 
Artemis.^     But  here  it  may  be  asked.  How  did  it  come 

most  notorious  facts  are  those  about  which  authors  are  most  apt  to  be 
silent  when  writing  for  contemporaries,  simply  because  every  person 
acknowledges  them  and  takes  them  for  granted. 

'  This  is  manifest  at  once  if  the  reader  will  consult  Mr.  Wood's 
Ephesus  or  Guhl's  Ephesiaca,  a  work  which,  though  published  (in 
1843)  before  modern  discoveries  had  taught  all  we  now  know,  is  a  most 
elaborate  account  of  ancient  Ephesus  gleaned  out  of  ancient  writers. 

'^  See  on  the  exact  time  of  the  Macedonian  and  Ephesian  month  of 
Artemisius,  Ussher's  treatise  on  the  Macedonian  and  Asiatic  solar  year, 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  363 

to  pass  that  Artemis  or  Diana  occupied  such  a  large 
share  in  the  public  worship  of  Ephesus  and  the  province 
of  Asia  ?  Has  modern  research  confirmed  the  impres- 
sion which  this  chapter  leaves  upon  the  mind,  that 
the  Ephesian  people  were  above  all  else  devoted  to  the 
worship  of  the  deity  ?  The  answers  to  both  these 
queries  are  not  hard  to  give,  and  serve  to  confirm  our 
belief  in  the  honesty  and  accuracy  of  the  sacred 
penman.  The  worship  of  Artemis,  or  of  Anaitis  rather, 
prevailed  in  the  peninsula  of  Asia  Minor  from  the 
time  of  Cyrus,  who  introduced  it  six  or  seven  centuries 
before.'^  Anaitis  was  the  Asiatic  deity  of  fruitfulness, 
the  same  as  Ashtoreth  of  the  Bible,  whom  the  Greeks 
soon  identified  with  their  own  goddess  Artemis.  Her 
worship  quickly  spread,  specially  through  that  portion 
of  the  country  which  afterwards  became  the  province 
of  Asia,  and  through  the  adjacent  districts ;  showing 
how  rapidly  an  evil  taint  introduced  into  a  nation's 
spiritual  life-blood  spreads  throughout  its  whole  organi- 
sation, and  when  once  introduced  how  persistently  it 
holds  its  ground ;  a  lesson  taught  here  in  New  Testa- 

in  the  seventh  vohime  of  his  works  Ed.  Elrington,  p.  425,  with  which 
may  be  compared  Bishop  Lightfoot's  Ignatms,  i.  660-700.  Mr.  Lewin, 
in  his  Fasti  Sacri,  p.  309,  makes  it  the  month  of  May.  The  Macedonian 
month  Artemisius  extended  from  March  25th  to  April  24th.  This 
point  is  further  discussed  in  Lewin's'i"^.  Paid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  405.  If  St, 
Paul  wrote  i  Corinthians  at  or  shortly  before  April  7th,  the  date  of 
the  Passover,  the  riot  which  hastened  his  departure  must  have  happened 
within  the  succeeding  fortnight.  Boeckh,  in  the  Corpus  of  Greek  Inscrip- 
tions, No.  2954,  inserts  a  long  Greek  inscription,  found  one  hundred 
and  seventy  years  ago  at  Ephesus,  laying  down  the  ceremonial  to  be  ob- 
served in  honour  of  the  deity  throughout  the  whole  month,  which  Mr, 
Lewin  translates,  vol.  i.,  p.  405.  See,  however,  more  upon  this  below. 
'  The  Persian  language  was  still  used  in  the  worship  of  Diana  at 
Hierocaesarea  and  Hyp^epa,  two  well-known  towns  of  the  province  of 
Asia  in  the  second  century  of  our  era.  See  Pausanias,  v.  27  ;  cf. 
Tacitus,  Annals,  iii.  62,  and  Ramsay's  Hist.  Geog.,  p.  128. 


364  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ment  times,  as  in  Old  Testament  days  it  was  proclaimed 
in  Israel's  case  by  the  oft-repeated  statement  concerning 
her  kings,  "  Howbeit  from  the  sins  of  Jeroboam  [king 
after  king]  departed  not."  The  spiritual  life  and  tone 
of  a  nation  is  a  very  precious  thing,  and  because  it  is 
so  the  Church  of  England  does  well  to  bestow  so  much 
of  her  public  supplication  upon  those  who  have  power, 
like  Cyrus  and  Jeroboam,  to  taint  it  at  the  very  founda- 
tion and  origin  thereof.  When,  for  instance,  St.  Paul 
landed  at  Perga  in  Pamphylia,  on  the  first  occasion 
when  he  visited  Asia  Minor  as  a  Christian  missionary, 
his  eye  was  saluted  with  the  splendid  temple  of  Diana 
on  the  side  of  the  hill  beneath  which  the  city  was  built, 
and  all  over  the  country  at  every  important  town  similar 
temples  were  erected  in  her  honour,  where  their  ruins 
have  been  traced  by  modern  travellers.^  The  cult  or 
worship  introduced  by  Cyrus  exactly  suited  the  morals 
and  disposition  of  these  Oriental  Greeks,  and  flourished 
accordingly. 

Artemis  was  esteemed  the  protectress  of  the  cities 
where  her  temples  were  built,  which,  as  in  the  case 
of  Ephesus  and  of  Perga,  were  placed  outside  the 
gates  like  the  temple  of  Jupiter  at  Lystra,  in  order  that 
their  presence  might  cast  a  halo  of  protection  over  the 
adjacent  communities.     The  temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus 


'  Voluntary  associations  were  formed  all  over  Asia  Minor  to 
cultivate  the  worship  of  Artemis.  Modern  research,  for  instance,  has 
found  inscriptions  raised  by  the  Xenoi  Tekmoreioi  indicating  their 
peculiar  devotion  to  Diana  and  her  worship.  They  specially  flourished 
at  a  place  called  Saghir,  near  Antioch  in  Pisidia.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  the  cult  of  the  B.V.M.  has  been  substituted  for  that  of  Artemis  by 
the  Greeks  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  a  feast  in  her  honour  is  cele- 
brated at  the  same  time  as  the  ancient  feast.  See  Revue  Archeologique, 
1887,  vol.  i.,  p.  96  J  Ramsay,  in  his  Geogi-aphy  of  Asia  Minor,  p.  409, 
{ind  in  four.  Hell.  Studies  for  1883. 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  365 

was  a  splendid  building.  It  had  been  several  times 
destroyed  by  fire  notwithstanding  its  revered  character 
and  the  presence  of  the  sacred  image/  and  had  been 
as  often  rebuilt  with  greater  splendour  than  before, 
till  the  temple  was  erected  existing  in  St.  Paul's  day, 
which  justly  excited  the  wonder  of  mankind,  as  its 
splendid  ruins  have  shown,  which  Mr.  Wood  has  exca- 
vated in  our  own  time  at  the  expense  of  the  English 
Government.^  The  devotion  of  the  Ephesians  to  this 
ancient  Asiatic  deity  had  even  been  increasing  of  late 
years  when  St.  Paul  visited  Ephesus,  as  a  decree  still 
exists  in  its  original  shape  graven  in  stone  exactly  as 
St.  Paul  must  have  seen  it  enacting  extended  honours 
to  the  deity.  As  this  decree  bears  directly  upon  the 
famous  riot  which  Demetrius  raised,  we  insert  it  here 
in  full,  as  an  interesting  confirmat-ion  and  illustration 
of  the  sacred  narrative  :  "  To  the  Ephesian  Diana. 
Forasmuch  as  it  is  notorious  that  not  only  among  the 
Ephesians,  but  also  everywhere  among  the  Greek 
nations,  temples  are  consecrated  to  her,  and  sacred 
precincts,  and  that  she  hath  images  and  altars  dedicated 

'  The  original  sacred  image,  which  was  preserved  inside  a  screen 
or  curtain  in  the  inmost  temple,  was  a  shapeless  mass  of  wood  some- 
thing like  the  prehistoric  blocks  of  wood  or  stone  which  were  esteemed 
at  Athens  and  elsewhere  the  most  venerable  images  of  their  favourite 
deities :  see  Pausanias,  Description  of  Greece,  i.  26.  The  legend  at 
Ephesus  was  just  the  same  as  at  Athens  and  elsewhere,  that  these 
prehistoric  images  had  fallen  down  from  heaven.  Some  of  them  may 
have  been  aerolites. 

^  The  temple  of  Ephesus  is  depicted  in  Conybeare  and  Howson's 
and  Lewin's  St.  Paul,  as  well  as  it  could  have  been  restored  from  a 
study  of  books.  At  the  time  of  their  publication  neither  Mr.  Wood's 
discoveries  had  been  made  nor  his  work  on  Ephesus  published.  The 
plans  and  engravings  in  Mr.  Wood's  work  of  course  supersede  all  others. 
The  plans,  etc.,  in  the  other  works  ai^e  sufficiently  accurate  to  enable 
the  reader  to  realise  the  language  of  the  Acts. 


366  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  her  on  account  of  her  plain  manifestations  of  herself, 
and  that,  besides,  the  greatest  token  of  veneration  paid 
to  her,  a  month  is  called  after  her  name,  by  us  Arte- 
mision,  by  the  Macedonians  and  other  Greek  nations 
and  their  cities,  Artemisius,  in  which  month  general 
gatherings  and  festivals  are  celebrated,  and  more 
especially  in  our  own  city,  the  nurse  of  its  own,  the 
Ephesian  goddess.  Now  the  people  of  Ephesus  deem- 
ing it  proper  that  the  whole  month  called  by  her  name 
should  be  sacred  and  set  apart  to  the  goddess,  have 
resolved  by  this  decree,  that  the  observation  of  it  by 
them  be  altered.  Therefore  it  is  enacted,  that  the 
whole  month  Artemision  in  all  the  days  of  it  shall  be 
holy,  and  that  throughout  the  month  there  shall  be 
a  continued  celebration  of  feasts  and  the  Artemisian 
festivals  and  the  holy  days,  seeing  that  the  entire 
month  is  sacred  to  the  goddess ;  for  from  this  improve- 
ment in  her  worship  our  city  shall  receive  additional 
lustre  and  enjoy  perpetual  prosperity."  ^  Now  this  decree, 
which  preceded  St.  Paul's  labours  perhaps  by  twenty 
years  or  more,  has  an  important  bearing  on  our  subject. 
St.  Luke  tells  us  that  "  about  this  time  there  arose  no 
small  stir  about  the  Way  "  ;  and  it  was  only  quite  natural 
and  quite  in  accord  with  what  we  know  of  other  pagan 
persecutions,  and  of  human  nature  in  general,  that  the 
precise  time  at  which  the  Apostle  had  then  arrived 
should  have  been  marked  by  this  riot.  The  whole 
city  of  Ephesus  was  then  given  up  to  the  celebration 
of  the  festival  held  in  honour  of  what  we  may  call  the 
national  religion  and  the  national  deity.  That  festival 
lasted  the  whole  month,  and  was  accompanied,  as  all 
human   festivals    are   apt    to   be  accompanied,   with   a 

'  The  original  of  this  decree  will  be  found  in  Boeckh's  Corp.  Inscriptt, 
Grcec,  No.  2954,  and  the  translation  in  Lewin's  .S"^.  Paul,     405. 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  367 

vast  deal  of  drunkenness  and  vice,  as  we  are  expressly 
told  in  an  ancient  Greek  romance,  written  by  a  Greek 
of  whom  little  is  known,  named  Achilles  Tatius.^  The 
people  of  Ephesus  were,  in  fact,  mad  with  excitement, 
and  it  did  not  require  any  great  skill  to  stir  them  up 
to  excesses  in  defence  of  the  endangered  deity  whose 
worship  was  the  glory  of  their  city.  We  know  from 
one  or  two  similar  cases  that  the  attack  made  upon 
St.  Paul  at  this  pagan  festival  had  exact  parallels  in 
these  early  ages. 

This  festival  in  honour  of  Diana  was  generally 
utilised  as  the  meeting-time  of  the  local  diet  or  parlia- 
ment   of  the   province    of  Asia,  where  deputies  from 


'  There  is  a  long  account  of  Achilles  Tatius  in  the  Bihliotheca  Grceca 
of  Fabricius.  He  was  a  pagan  first,  and  then  became  a  Christian.  His 
age  is  uncertain,  but  he  certainly  seems  to  have  lived  when  pagan 
feasts  were  still  observed  in  their  ancient  splendour.  The  book  in 
which  be  describes  them  is  called  De  Amorilms  Clitophontis  et  Leticippes, 
where  in  Book  VI.,  ch.  iii.  there  is  an  account  of  the  drunkenness 
and  idleness  at  the  feast  of  Diana.  The  words  of  Achilles  Tatius 
bring  the  scene  vividly  before  us  as  St.  Paul  must  have  seen  it  :  "  It 
was  the  festival  of  Artemis,  and  every  place  was  full  of  drunken  men, 
and  all  the  market-place  was  full  of  a  multitude  of  men  through 
the  whole  night."  In  Mason's  Diocletian  Persecution^  p.  361,  there 
will  be  found  an  account  of  a  festival  celebrated  in  honour  of  Artemis 
in  the  same  spring  season  at  Ancyra  in  Galatia.  This  latter  account 
is  useful  as  giving  us  an  authentic  account  of  a  Celtic  festival  of  Diana 
about  the  year  306  a.d.  It  would  seem  as  if  an  annual  public  washing 
of  the  image  of  Diana  constituted  an  important  part  of  the  ceremonial- 
Both  at  Ancyra  as  told  in  the  Acts  of  St.  Theodotus  and  at  Ephesus 
the  image  of  Diana  was  annually  carried  about  in  a  waggon  drawn  by 
mules  :  see  Guhl's  Ephesicua,  p.  114.  At  Ancyra,  during  the  Diocletian 
persecution,  seven  Christian  virgins  were  dressed  as  priestesses  of  Diana 
and  condemned  to  publicly  wash  the  idol.  Upon  their  refusal  they  were 
all  drowned  in  the  lake  where  the  image  was  washed.  The  Seven 
Virgins  of  Ancyra  are  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  Christian  martyrdom 
for  their  heroic  resistance  on  this  occasion.  See  Mason,  I.e.,  and  the 
Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  s.v.  Seven  Virgins  of  Ancyra  and  Theodotus. 


368  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

all  the  cities  of  the  province  met  together  to  consult 
on  their  common  wants  and  transmit  their  decisions 
to  the  proconsul,  a  point  to  which  we  shall  later  on 
have  occasion  to  refer.  Just  ninety  years  later  one 
of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  primitive  martyrs  suffered 
upon  the  same  occasion  at  Smyrna.  Polycarp,  the 
disciple  of  St.  John,  lived  to  a  very  advanced  period, 
and  helped  to  hand  down  the  tradition  of  apostolic 
life  and  doctrine  to  another  generation.  Polycarp, 
is,  in  fact,  through  Irenaeus,  one  of  the  chief  historic 
links  uniting  the  Church  of  later  times  with  the 
apostles.  Polycarp  suffered  martyrdom  amid  the  ex- 
citement raised  during  the  meeting  of  the  same  diet  of 
Asia  held,  not  at  Ephesus,  but  at  Smyrna,  and  attended 
by  the  same  religious  ceremonies  and  observances. 
Or  let  us  again  turn  towards  the  West,  and  we  shall  find 
it  the  same.  The  martyrdoms  of  Vienne  and  Lyons 
described  by  Eusebius  in  the  fifth  book  of  his  history 
are  among  the  most  celebrated  in  the  whole  history  of 
the  Church,  and  as  such  have  been  already  referred  to 
and  used  in  this  commentary.^  These  martyrdoms  are 
an  illustration  of  the  same  fact  that  the  Christians  were 
always  exposed  to  peculiar  danger  at  the  annual  pagan 
celebrations.  The  Gallic  tribes,  the  seven  nations  of  the 
Gauls^  as  they  were  called,  were  holding  their  annual  diet 
or  assembly,  and  celebrating  the  worship  of  the  national 
deities  when  their  zeal  was  excited  to  red-hot  pitch 
against  the  Christians  of  Vienne  and  Lyons,  resulting  in 
the  terrible  outbreak  of  which  Eusebius  in  his  fifth  book 
tells  us.^    As  it  was  in  Gaul  about  177  a.d.  and  in  Smyrna 

'  See  vol.  i.,  pp.  8,  9. 

^  See  the  articles  on  Polycarp  in  the  Dicf.  Christ.  Biog.,  iv.  426,  and 
on  Martyrs  of  Lyons,  iii.  764.  As  regards  Polycarp,  see  also  Lightfoot's 
Ignatius,  vol.  i.,  p.  436  ;  and  as  regards  the  Martyrs  of  Lyons,   see 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  369 

about  155  A.D.,  so  was  it  in  Ephesus  in  the  year  57  ;  the 
month's  festival,  celebrated  in  honour  of  Diana,  accom- 
panied with  eating  and  drinking  and  idleness  in  abund- 
ance, told  upon  the  populace,  and  made  them  ready  for  any 
excess,  so  that  it  is  no  wonder  we  should  read,  "  About 
that  time  there  arose  no  small  stir  about  the  Way." 
Then  too  there  is  another  circumstance  which  may  have 
stirred  up  Demetrius  to  special  violence.  His  trade  was 
probably  falling  off  owing  to  St.  Paul's  labours,  and  this 
may  have  been  brought  home  to  him  with  special  force 
by  the  results  of  the  festival  which  was  then  in  process 
of  celebration  or  perhaps  almost  finished.  All  the 
circumstances  fit  this  hypothesis.  The  shrine-makers 
were,  we  know,  a  very  important  element  in  the  popula- 
tion of  Ephesus,  and  the  trade  of  shrine-making  and 
the  manufacture  of  other  silver  ornaments  conduced  in 
no  small  degree  to  the  commercial  prosperity  of  the 
city  of  Ephesus.  This  is  plainly  stated  upon  the  face 
of  our  narrative  :  "  Ye  know  that  by  this  business  we 
have  our  wealth,  and  ye  see  and  hear  that  not  alone  at 
Ephesus,  but  almost  throughout  all  Asia,  this  Paul  hath 
turned  avv^ay  much  people,"  facts  which  could  not  have 
been  more  forcibly  brought  home  to  them  than  by  the 
decreasing  call  they  were  experiencing  for  the  particular 
articles  which  they  produced. 

Now    the   question   may   be    proposed.    Was    this 
the   fact  ?     Was    Ephesus   celebrated   for   its   shrine- 

Renan's  Marc-Aurile,  pp.  329,  331.  It  is  interesting  to  notice,  in  the 
writings  of  St.  Paulinus  of  Nola  written  about  the  year  400  a.d.,  his 
complaints  about  the  abuses,  drunkenness  and  idleness,  connected  with 
the  feasts  and  holy  days  observed  in  honour  of  his  great  patron  and 
hero  St.  Felix  the  Martyr.  A  similar  feeling  of  the  moral  dangers 
connected  with  religious  holy  days  led  to  the  abbreviation  of  the 
week's  holiday  following  Easter  and  "Whitsunday  to  Monday  and 
Tuesday  as  at  present. 

VOL.    II.  24 


370  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


makers,  and  were  shrines  and  silver  ornaments  a 
favourite  manufacture  in  that  city  ?  Here  modern 
research  comes  in  to  testify  to  the  marked  truthfulness, 
the  minute  accuracy  of  St.  Luke.  We  do  not  now  need 
to  appeal  to  ancient  authors,  as  Lives  of  St.  Paul  like 
those  written  by  Mr.  Lewin  or  by  Messrs.  Conybeare 
and  Howson  do.  The  excavations  which  have  taken 
place  at  Ephesus  since  the  publication  of  these  valuable 
works  have  amply  vindicated  the  historic  character  of 
our  narrative  on  this  point.  Mr.  Wood  in  the  course  of 
his  excavations  at  Ephesus  discovered  a  vast  number 
of  inscriptions  and  sculptures  which  had  once  adorned 
the  temple  of  Ephesus,  but  upon  its  destruction  had 
been  removed  to  the  theatre,  which  continued  in  full 
operation  long  after  the  pagan  temple  had  disappeared.^ 
Among  these  inscriptions  there  was  one  enormous  one 
brought  to  light.  It  was  erected  some  forty  years  or 
so  after  St.  Paul's  time,  but  it  serves  in  the  minuteness 
of  its  details  to  illustrate  the  story  of  Demetrius,  the 
speech  he  made,  and  the  riot  he  raised.  This  inscription 
was  raised  in  honour  of  a  wealthy  Roman  named  Gaius 
Vibius  Salutarius,  who  had  dedicated  to  Artemis  a  large 
number  of  silver  images  weighing  from  three  to  seven 
pounds  each,  and  had  even  provided  a  competent  endow- 
ment forke  eping  up  a  public  festival  in  her  honour, 
which  was  to  be  celebrated  on  the  birthday  of  the 
goddess,  which  happened  in  the  month  of  April  or  May. 
The  inscription,  which  contains  the  particulars  of  the 
offering  made  by  this  Roman,  would  take  up  quite  too 
much  space  if  we  desired  to  insert  it.    We  can  only  now 

'  The  pagan  temples  were  almost  universally  destroyed  about  the 
year  400.  The  edicts  dealing  with  this  matter  and  an  ample  commen- 
tary upon  them  will  be  found  in  the  Theodosian  Code,  edited  by  that 
eminent  scholar  Godefroy. 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  371 


refer   our  readers  to    Mr.   Wood's  book  on  Ephesus, 
where   they  will   find  it  given  at  full  length.     A  few 
lines  may,  however,  be  quoted  to  illustrate  the  extent 
to  which  the  manufacture  of  silver  shrines  and  silver 
ornaments  in  honour  of  Artemis  must  have  flourished 
in  Ephesus,     This  inscription  enumerates  the  images 
dedicated  to  the  goddess  which  Salutarius  had  provided 
by    his    endowments,    entering   into    the  most   minute 
details  as  to  their  treatment  and  care.     The  following 
passage    gives    a    vivid    picture   of  Ephesian    idolatry 
as  the  Apostle  saw  it :  "  Let  two  statues  of  Artemis 
of  the  weight  of  three   pounds    three   ounces    be  re- 
ligiously kept  in  the  custody  of  Salutarius,  who  himself 
consecrated   them,  and   after  the  death  of  Salutarius, 
let  the  aforesaid  statues  be  restored  to  the  town-clerk 
of  the  Ephesians,  and  let  it  be  made  a  rule  that  they 
be  placed  at  the  public  meetings  above  the  seat  of  the 
council   in   the   theatre   before   the    golden   statue   of 
Artemis  and  the  other  statues.     And  a  golden  Artemis 
weighing  three  pounds  and  two  silver  deer  attending 
her,  and  the  rest  of  the  images  of  the  vv^^eight  of  two 
pounds    ten   ounces   and    five  grammes,   and    a   silver 
statue  of  the  Sacred  Senate  of  the  weight  of  four  pounds 
two  ounces,  and  a  silver  statue  of  the  council  of  the 
Ephesians.     Likewise  a  silver  Artemis  bearing  a  torch 
of  the  weight  of  six  pounds,    and  a   silver   statue  of 
the  Roman  people."     And  so  the  inscription  proceeds 
to  name  and  devote  silver  and  golden  statues  literally 
by  dozens,  which  Salutarius  intended  to  be  borne  in 
solemn    procession  on    the  feast-day  of   Diana.      It  is 
quite  evident  that  did  we  possess  but  this  inscription 
alone,  we  have  here  amply  sufficient  evidence  showing 
us  that  one  of  the  staple  trades  of  Ephesus,  one  upon 
which  the  prosperity  and  welfare  of  a  large  section  of 


372  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

its  inhabitants  depended,  was  this  manufacture  of  silver 
and  gold  ornaments  directly  connected  with  the  worship 
of  the  goddess/  For  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
guild  of  shrine-makers  did  not  depend  alone  upon  the 
chance  liberality  of  a  stray  wealthy  Roman  or  Greek 
like  Salutarius,  who  might  feel  moved  to  create  a 
special  endowment  or  bestow  special  gifts  upon  the 
temple.  The  guild  of  shrine-makers  depended  upon 
the  large  and  regular  demand  of  a  vast  population  who 
required  a  supply  of  cheap  and  handy  shrines  to  satisfy 
their  religious  cravings.  The  population  of  the  sur- 
rounding districts  and  towns  poured  into  Ephesus  at 
this  annual  festival  of  Diana  and  paid  their  devotions  in 
her  temple.  But  even  the  pagans  required  some  kind 
of  social  and  family  religion.  They  could  not  live 
as  too  many  nominal  Christians  are  contented  to  live, 
without  any  family  or  personal  acknowledgment  of 
their  dependence  upon  a  higher  power.  There  was 
no  provision  for  pubhc  worship  in  the  rural  districts 
answering  to  our  parochial  system,  and  so  they  sup- 
plied the  want  by  purchasing  on  occasions  like  this 
feast  of  Diana,  shrines,  little  silver  images,  or  likenesses 
of  the  central  cell  of  the  great  temple  where  the  sacred 
image  rested,  and  which  served  as  central  points  to 
fix  their  thoughts  and  excite  the  gratitude  due  to  the 
goddess  whom  they  adored,  Demetrius  and  his  fellow- 
craftsmen  depended  upon  the  demand  created  by  a  vast 
population   of  devout  believers  in  Artemis,  and  when 

'  An  interesting  confirmation  of  this  fact  came  to  light  in  modern 
times.  In  the  year  1830  there  was  found  in  Southern  France  a  piece  of 
such  Ephesian  silver  work  wrought  in  honour  of  Artemis,  and  carried 
into  Gaul  by  one  of  her  worshippers.  It  is  now  deposited  in  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale,  and  has  been  fully  described  in  an  interesting 
article  in  the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  IO4-I06,  written 
by  that  eminent  antiquary  C,  Waldstein. 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  373 

this  demand  began  to  fall  off  Demetrius  traced  the  bad 
trade  which  he  and  his  fellows  were  experiencing  to 
the  true  source.  He  recognised  the  Christian  teaching 
imparted  by  St.  Paul  as  the  deadly  enemy  of  his  un- 
righteous gains,  and  naturally  directed  the  rage  of  the 
mob  against  the  preacher  of  truth  and  righteousness. 
The  actual  words  of  Demetrius  are  deserving  of  the 
most  careful  study,  for  they  too  have  been  illustrated  by 
modern  discovery  in  the  most  striking  manner.  Having 
spoken  of  the  results  of  St.  Paul's  teaching  in  Asia  of 
v/hich  they  all  had  had  personal  experience,  he  then  pro- 
ceeds to  expatiate  on  its  dangerous  character,  not  only 
as  regards  their  own  personal  interests,  but  as  regards 
the  goddess  and  her  sacred  dignity  as  well :  "  And 
not  only  is  there  danger  that  this  our  trade  come  into 
disrepute,  but  also  that  the  temple  of  the  great  goddess 
Diana  be  made  of  no  account,  and  that  she  should  be 
deposed  from  her  magnificence  whom  all  Asia  and  the 
world  worshippeth."  Demetrius  cleverly  but  lightly 
touches  upon  the  self-interest  of  the  workmen.  He  does 
not  dwell  on  that  topic  too  long,  because  it  is  never 
well  for  an  orator  who  wishes  to  rouse  his  hearers  to 
enthusiasm  to  dwell  too  long  or  too  openly  upon  merely 
selfish  consideration.  Man  is  indeed  intensely  selfish 
by  nature,  but  then  he  does  not  like  to  be  told  so  too 
openly,  or  to  have  his  own  selfishness  paraded  too 
frequently  before  his  face.  He  likes  to  be  flattered 
as  if  he  cherished  a  belief  in  higher  things,  and  to 
have  his  low  ends  and  baser  motives  clothed  in  a 
similitude  of  noble  enthusiasm.  Demetrius  hints  there- 
fore at  their  own  impoverishment  as  the  results  of 
Paul's  teaching,  but  expatiates  on  the  certain  destruc- 
tion which  awaits  the  glory  of  their  time-honoured 
and  world-renowned  deity  if  free  course  be  any  longer 


374  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

permitted  to  such  doctrine.  This  speech  is  a  skilful 
composition  all  through.  It  shows  that  the  ancient 
rhetorical  skill  of  the  Greeks  still  flourished  in  Ephesus, 
and  not  the  least  skilful,  and  at  the  same  time  not 
the  least  true  touch  in  the  speech  was  that  wherein 
Demetrius  reminded  his  hearers  that  the  world  were 
onlookers  and  watchers  of  their  conduct,  noting  whether 
or  not  they  would  vindicate  Diana's  assailed  dignity.  It 
was  a  true  touch,  I  say,  for  modern  research  has  shown 
that  the  worship  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis  was  world- 
wide in  its  extent ;  it  had  come  from  the  distant  east, 
and  had  travelled  to  the  farthest  west.  We  have 
already  noted  the  testimony  of  modern  travellers  show- 
ing that  her  worship  extended  over  Asia  Minor  in 
every  direction.  This  fact  Demetrius  long  ago  told  the 
Ephesians,  and  ancient  authors  have  repeated  his  testi- 
mony, and  modern  travellers  have  merely  corroborated 
them.  But  we  were  not  aware  how  accurate  was 
Demetrius  about  the  whole  world  worshipping  Artemis, 
till  in  our  own  time  the  statues  and  temples  of  the 
Ephesian  goddess  were  found  existing  so  far  west  as 
Southern  Gaul,  Marseilles,  and  the  coast  of  Spain, 
proving  that  wherever  Asiatic  sailors  and  Asiatic 
merchants  came  thither  they  brought  with  them  the 
worship  of  their  favourite  deity.  ^ 

Let   us   pass    on,    however,    and    see   whether   the 

'  See  the  Revue  Archeologiqtie  for  1886,  vol.  ii.,  p.  257,  about  the 
worship  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis  in  Marseilles  and  Southern  Gaul,  and 
an  article  in  the  J'ozirnal  of  Hellenic  Studies  for  1889,  vol.  x.,  p.  216,  by 
Professor  Ramsay,  on  the  vast  extent  of  Artemis  worship  in  Asia.  In 
the  same  journal,  for  1890,  vol.  xi.,  p.  235,  we  have  an  account  of  the 
discovery  of  one  of  the  original  seats  of  Artemis  worship  in  Eastern 
Cilicia  by  Mr.  J.  T.  Bent ;  while  again,  in  vol.  iv.,  p.  40-43,  Ramsay 
gives  us  a  subscription  list  raised  in  Pisidia  for  the  purpose  of  building 
a  temple  of  Artemis  in  a  country  district. 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  375 

remainder  of  this  narrative  will  not  afford  us  subject- 
matter  for  abundant  illustrations.  The  mob  drank  in  the 
speech  of  Demetrius,  and  responded  with  the  national 
shout,  "Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,"  a  cry  which 
has  been  found  inscribed  on  altars  and  tablets  all  over 
the  province  of  Asia,  showing  that  it  was  a  kind  of 
watchword  among  the  inhabitants  of  that  district.  The 
crowd  of  workmen  whom  Demetrius  had  been  address- 
ing then  rushed  into  the  theatre,  the  usual  place  of 
assembly  for  the  people  of  Ephesus,  dragging  with 
them  "  Gaius  and  Aristarchus,^  men  of  Macedonia, 
Paul's  companions  in  travel."  The  Jews  too  followed 
the  mob,  eager  to  make  the  unexpected  tumult  serve 
their  own  hostile  purposes  against  St.  Paul.  News 
of  the  riot  was  soon  carried  to  the  Apostle,  who 
learning  of  the  danger  to  which  his  friends  were 
exposed  desired  to  enter  that  theatre  the  magnificent 
proportions  and  ornamentation  of  which  have  been  for 
the  first  time  displayed  to  modern  eyes  by  the  labours 
of  Mr.  Wood.  But  the  local  Christians  knew  the 
Ephesian  mob  and  their  state  of  excitement  better  than 
St.  Paul  did,  and  so  they  would  not  allow  him  to  risk 
his  life  amid  the  infuriated  crowd.  The  Apostle's  teach- 
ing too  had  reached  the  very  highest  ranks  of  Ephesian 
and  Asiatic  socie*-y.  The  very  Asiarchs,  being  his 
friends,  sent  unto  him  and  requested  him  not  to  enter 
the  theatre.  Here  again  we  come  across  one  of  those 
incidental  references  which  display  St.  Luke's  acquaint- 
ance with  the  local  peculiarities  of  the  Ephesian  con- 
stitution, and  which  have  been  only  really  appreciated 
in  the  light   of  modern  discoveries.     In    the    time    of 

'  Aristarchus  is  described  in  the  Martyrologies  as  the  first  bishop  of 
Thessalonica,  and  is  said  to  have  suffered'martyrdom  under  Nero.  He 
is  commemorated  on  August  4th. 


376  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

King  James  I.,  when  the  Authorised  Version  was  made, 
the  translators  knew  nothing  of  the  proof  of  the  sacred 
writer's  accuracy  which  lay  under  their  hands  in  the 
words,  "  Certain  of  the  Asiarchs  or  chief  officers  of 
Asia,"  and  so  they  translated  them  very  literally  but 
very  incorrectly,  "  Certain  of  the  chief  of  Asia,"  ignoring 
completely  the  official  rank  and  title  which  these  men 
possessed.  A  few  words  must  suffice  to  give  a  brief 
explanation  of  the  office  these  men  held.  The  province 
of  Asia  from  ancient  times  had  celebrated  this  feast  of 
Artemis  at  an  assembly  of  all  the  cities  of  Asia.  This 
we  have  already  explained.  The  Romans  united  with 
the  worship  of  Artemis  the  worship  of  the  Emperor 
and  of  the  City  of  Rome ;  so  that  loyalty  to  the 
Emperor  and  loyalty  to  the  national  religion  went  hand 
in  hand.  They  appointed  certain  officials  to  preside  at 
these  games,  they  made  them  presidents  of  the  local 
diets  or  parliaments  which  assembled  to  discuss  local 
matters  at  these  national  assemblies,  they  gave  them 
the  highest  positions  in  the  province  next  to  the  pro- 
consul, they  surrounded  them  with  great  pomp,  and 
endued  them  with  considerable  power  so  long  as  the 
festival  lasted,  and  then,  being  intent  on  uniting 
economy  with  their  generosity,  they  made  these  Asiarchs, 
as  they  were  called,  responsible  for  all  the  expenses 
incurred  in  the  celebration  of  the  games  and  diets. 
It  was  a  clever  policy,  as  it  secured  the  maximum  of 
contentment  on  the  people's  part  with  the  minimum  of 
expense  to  the  imperial  government.  This  arrange- 
ment clearly  limited  the  position  of  the  Asiarchate  to 
rich  men,  as  they  alone  could  afford  the  enormous 
expenses  involved.  The  Greeks,  specially  those  of 
Asia,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  were  very  flashy 
in  their  disposition.    They  loved  titles  and  decorations ; 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT  377 

SO  much  so  that  one  of  their  own  orators  of  St.  Paul's 
day,  Dion  Chrysostom,  tells  us  that,  provided  they  got 
a  title,  they  would  suffer  any  indignity.  There  were 
therefore  crowds  of  rich  men  always  ready  to  take 
the  office  of  Asiarch,  which  by  degrees  was  turned 
into  a  kind  of  life  peerage,  a  man  once  an  Asiarch 
always  retaining  the  title,  while  his  wife  was  called 
the  Asiarchess,  as  we  find  from  the  inscriptions.  The 
Asiarchs  were,  in  fact,  the  official  aristocracy  of  the 
province  of  Asia.  They  had  assembled  on  this  occasion 
for  the  purpose  of  sitting  in  the  local  parliament  and 
presiding  over  the  annual  games  in  honour  of  Diana. ^ 
Their  interests  and  their  honour  were  all  bound  up 
with  the  worship  of  the  goddess,  and  yet  the  preaching 
of  St.  Paul  had  told  so  powerfully  upon  the  whole 
province,  that  even  among  the  very  officials  of  the 
State  religion  St.  Paul  had  friends  and  supporters 
anxious  to  preserve  his  life,  and  therefore  sent  him  a 
message  not  to  adventure  himself  into  the  theatre.  It  is 
no  wonder  that  Demetrius  the  silversmith  roused  his 
fellow-craftsm.en  into  activity  and  fanned  the  flame  of 
their  wrath,  for  the  worship  of  Diana  of  the  Ephe- 
sians  was  indeed  in  danger  when  the  very  men  whose 
office  bound  them  to  its  support  were  in  league  with 
such  an  uncompromising  opponent  as  this  Paul  of 
Tarsus.  St.  Luke  thus  gives  a  glimpse  of  the  consti- 
tution of  Ephesus  and  of  the  province  of  Asia  in  his 
time.  Pie  shows  us  the  peculiar  institution  of  the 
Asiarchate,  and  then  when  we  turn  to  the  inscriptions 
which  Mr.  Wood  and  other  modern  discoverers  have 

'  These  local  parliaments  under  the  Roman  Empire  have  been  the 
subject  of  much  modern  investigation  at  the  hands  of  French  and 
German  scholars.  See  for  references  to  the  authorities  on  the  point 
an  article  which  I  wrote  in  Macmillan! s  Magazine  for  1882. 


378  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

unearthed,  we  find  that  the  Asiarchs  occupy  a  most  promi- 
nent position  in  them,  vindicating  in  the  amplest  manner 
the  introduction  of  them  by  St.  Luke  as  assembled  at 
Ephesus  at  this  special  season,  and  there  interesting 
themselves  in  the  welfare  of  the  great  Apostle.-^ 

But  now  there  comes  on  the  scene  another  official, 
whose  title  and  office  have  been  the  subject  of  many  an 
illustration  furnished  by  modern  research.  The  Jews 
who  followed  the  mob  into  the  theatre,  when  they  did 
not  see  St.  Paul  there,  put  forward  one  Alexander  as 
their  spokesman.  This  man  has  been  by  some  identi- 
fied with  Alexander  the  coppersmith,  to  whom  St.  Paul 
refers  (2  Tim.  iv.  14)  when  writing  to  Timothy,  then 
resident  at  Ephesus,  as  a  man  who  had  done  much 
injury  to  the  Christian  cause.  He  may  have  been  well 
known  as  a  brother-tradesman  by  the  Ephesian  silver- 
smiths, and  he  seems  to  have  been  regarded  by  the 
Jews  as  a  kind  of  leader  who  might  be  useful  in  direct- 
ing the  rage  of  the  mob  against  the  Christians  whom 
they  hated.  The  rioters,  however,  did  not  distinguish 
as  clearly  as  the  Jews  would  have  wished  between  the 
Christians  and  the  Jews.  They  made  the  same  mis- 
take as  the  Romans  did  for  more  than  a  century  later, 
and  confounded  Jews  and  Christians  together.  They 
were  all,  in  any  case,  opponents  of  idol  worship  and 
chiefly  of  their  favourite  goddess,  and  therefore  the  sight 
of  Alexander  merely  intensified  their  rage,  so  much  that 
for  the  space  of  two  hours  they  continued  to  vociferate 
their  favourite  cry,  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians." 

'  See  the  index  to  Lightfoot's  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  for  extended 
references  to  the  Asiarchate,  and  also  Mommsen's  Roman  Provinces 
(Dickson's  translation),  vol.  i.,  pp.  345-7. 

^  The  Ephesian  mob  four  hundred  years  later  displayed  at  the  third 
General  Council  held   at  Ephesus   in  431  an  extraordinary  power  of 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  379 

Now,  however,  there  appeared  another  official,  whose 
title  and  character  have  become  famous  through  his 
action  on  this  occasion  :  "  When  the  town-clerk  had 
quieted  the  multitude,  he  saith,  Ye  men  of  Ephesus, 
what  man  is  there  who  knoweth  not  that  the  city 
of  the  Ephesians  is  temple-keeper  (or  Neocoros)  of 
the  great  Diana,  and  of  the  image  which  fell  down 
from  Jupiter  ?  "  Here  we  have  several  terms  which 
have  been  illustrated  and  confirmed  by  the  excava- 
tions of  Mr.  Wood.  The  town-clerk  or  recorder  is 
introduced,  because  he  was  the  chief  executive  officer 
of  the  city  of  Ephesus,  and,  as  such,  responsible  to  the 
Roman  authorities  for  the  peace  and  order  of  the  city. 
The  city  of  Ephesus  was  a  free  city,  retaining  its  ancient 
laws  and  customs  like  Athens  and  Thessalonica,  but 
only  on  the  condition  that  these  laws  were  effective  and 
peace  duly  kept.  Otherwise  the  Roman  authorities  and 
their  police  would  step  in.  These  town-clerks  or  re- 
corders of  Ephesus  are  known  from  this  one  passage  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  but  they  are  still  better  known 
from  the  inscriptions  which  have  been  brought  to  light  at 
Ephesus.  I  have  mentioned,  for  instance,  the  immense 
inscription  which  Mr.  Wood  discovered  in  the  theatre 
commemorating  the  gift  to  the  temple  of  Diana  of  a 
vast  number  of  gold  and  silver  images  made  by  one 
Vibius  Salutarius.  This  inscription  lays  down  that 
the  images  should  be  kept  in  the  custody  of  the  town- 
clerk    or   recorder  when  not  required   for  use   in   the 

keeping  up  the  same  cry  for  hours.  See  the  story  of  the  Council  as 
told  by  Hefele  in  the  third  volume  of  his  General  Councils  (Clark's 
translation).  Nothing  will  give  such  a  vigorous  idea  of  the  confusion 
which  then  jjrevailed  at  Ephesus  as  a  glance  at  Mansi's  Acts  of  that 
Council.  The  cry  "Anathema  to  Nestorius,"  the  heretic  against  whom 
the  Council  declared,  was  maintained  so  long  and  so  continuously  that 
one  would  imagine  that  orthodoxy  depended  on  strength  of  lungs. 


38o  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


solemn  religious  processions  made  through  the  city. 
The  names  of  a  great  many  town-clerks  have  been 
recovered  from  the  ruins  of  Ephesus,  some  of  them 
coming  from  the  reign  of  Nero,  the  very  period  when 
this  riot  took  place.  It  is  not  impossible  that  we  may 
yet  recover  the  very  name  of  the  town-clerk  who  gave 
the  riotous  mob  this  very  prudent  advice,  "  Ye  ought 
to  be  quiet,  and  to  do  nothing  rash,"  which  has  made 
him  immortal.  Then,  again,  a  title  for  the  city  of 
Ephesus  is  used  in  this  pacific  oration  which  is  strictly 
historical,  and  such  as  would  naturally  have  been 
used  by  a  man  in  the  town-clerk's  position.  He  calls 
Ephesus  the  "  temple-keeper,"  or  "  Neocoros,"  as  the 
word  literally  is,  of  the  goddess  Diana,  and  this  is  one 
of  the  most  usual  and  common  titles  in  the  lately 
discovered  inscriptions,  Ephesus  and  the  Ephesians 
were  indeed  so  devoted  to  the  worship  of  that  deity  and 
so  affected  by  the  honour  she  conferred  upon  them  that 
they  delighted  to  call  themselves  the  temple-sweepers, 
or  sextons,  of  the  great  Diana's  temple.  In  fact,  their 
devotion  to  the  worship  of  the  goddess  so  far  surpassed 
that  of  ordinary  cities  that  the  Ephesians  were  accus- 
tomed to  subordinate  their  reverence  for  the  Emperors 
to  their  reverence  for  their  religion,  and  thus  in  the 
decree  passed  by  them  honouring  Vibius  Salutarius 
who  endowed  their  temple  with  many  splendid  gifts, 
to  which  we  have  already  referred,  they  begin  by 
describing  themselves  thus :  "  In  the  presidency  of 
Tiberius  Claudius  Antipater  Julianus,  on  the  sixth 
day  of  the  first  decade  of  the  month  Poseideon,  it 
was  resolved  by  the  Council  and  the  Public  Assembly 
of  the  Necori  (of  Artemis)  and  Lovers  of  Augustus." 
The  Ephesians  must  have  been  profoundly  devoted  to 
Diana's  worship  when  in  that  age  of  gross  materialism 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  38 1 

they  would  dare  to  place  any  deity  higher  than  that  of 
the  reigning  emperor,  the  only  god  in  whom  a  true 
Roman  really  believed  ;  for  unregenerate  human  nature 
at  that  time  looked  at  the  things  alone  which  are  seen 
and  believed  in  nothing  else. 

The  rest  of  the  town-clerk's  speech  is  equally  de- 
serving of  study  from  every  point  of  view.  He  gives  us 
a  glimpse  of  the  Apostle's  method  of  controversy :  it 
was  wise,  courteous,  conciliatory.  It  did  not  hurt  the 
feelings  or  outrage  the  sentiments  of  natural  reverence, 
which  ought  ever  to  be  treated  with  the  greatest 
respect,  for  natural  reverence  is  a  delicate  plant,  and 
even  when  directed  towards  a  wrong  object  ought  to 
be  most  gently  handled.  "  Ye  have  brought  hither 
these  men,  which  are  neither  robbers  of  temples  nor 
blasphemers  of  our  goddess.-^  If  therefore  Demetrius, 
and  the  craftsmen  that  are  with  him,  have  a  matter 
against  any  man,  the  courts  are  open,  and  there  are 
proconsuls  :   let  them  accuse   one   another."     Modern 

'  St.  Paul's  zeal  never  outran  his  discretion.  He  never  blasphemed 
or  spoke  lightly  of  ideas  and  names  held  sacred  by  his  hearers.  I 
remember  in  our  local  ecclesiastical  history  an  example  of  the  opposite 
course  which  has  often  found  imitators.  When  Charles  Wesley  first 
visited  Dublin  about  the  year  1747,  he  left  behind  a  zealous  but  very 
unwise  preacher  to  continue  his  work.  His  language  was  so  violent 
that  the  mob  were  roused  to  bum  his  meeting-house,  which  stood  in 
Marlborough  Street  near  the  spot  where  the  Roman  Catholic  Cathedral 
now  stands.  He  then  took  his  stand  on  Oxmantown  Green  in  the 
northern  suburbs,  where  he  preached  in  the  open  air.  On  Christmas 
Day  he  took  the  Incarnation  as  his  subject,  and  began,  as  St.  Paul 
never  would  have  done,  by  crying  aloud,  "  I  curse  and  blaspheme  all 
gods  and  goddesses  in  heaven  and  earth,  save  the  Babe  that  was  bom 
in  Bethlehem  and  was  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes,"  whereupon  the 
Dublin  mob  with  their  ready  wit  in  the  matter  of  nick-names  called 
the  Methodists  swaddlers,  a  title  which  has  ever  since  stuck  to  them  in 
Ireland,  and  is  to  this  day  commonly  used  by  the  Roman  Catholics. 
This  seems  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  typical  character  of  the  Acts, 


382  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

research  has  thrown  additional  light  upon  these  words. 
The  Roman  system  of  provincial  government  anticipated 
the  English  system  of  assize  courts,  moving  from  place 
to  place,  introduced  by  Henry  II.  for  fehe  purpose  of 
bringing  justice  home  to  every  man's  door.^  It  was 
quite  natural  for  the  proconsul  of  Asia  to  hold  his  court 
at  the  same  time  as  the  annual  assembly  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Asia  and  the  great  festival  of  Diana.  The  great 
concourse  of  people  rendered  such  a  course  specially 
convenient,  while  the  presence  of  the  proconsul  helped 
to  keep  the  peace,  as,  to  take  a  well-known  instance, 
the  presence  of  Pontius  Pilate  at  the  great  annual 
Paschal  feast  at  Jerusalem  secured  the  Romans  against 
any  sudden  rebellion,  and  also  enabled  him  to  dispense 
justice  after  the  manner  of  an  assize  judge,  to  which 
fact  we  would  find  an  allusion  in  the  words  of  St. 
Mark  (xv.  6),  "  Now  at  the  feast  he  used  to  release 
unto  them  one  prisoner,  whom  they  asked  of  him." 

It  has  been  said,  indeed,  that  St,  Luke  here  puts 
into  the  town-clerk's  mouth  words  he  could  never  have 
used,  representing  him  as  saying  "  there  are  pro- 
consuls "  when,  in  fact,  there  was  never  more  than 
one  proconsul  in  the  province  of  Asia.  Such  criticism 
is  of  the  weakest  character.  Surely  every  man  that 
ever  speaks  in  public  knows  that  one  of  the  commonest 
usages  is  to  say  there  are  judges  or  magistrates, 
using  the  plural  when  one  judge  or  magistrate  may 
alone  be  exercising  jurisdiction  !  But  there  is  another 
explanation,    which    completely    solves    the    difficulty 

'  See  Preface  by  Bishop  Stubbs  to  Benedict  of  Peterborough,  Gesta 
Regis  Hen.  II.,  t.  ii.,  pp.  Ixv.-lxxi.  (Rolls  Series) ;  Madox,  Hist,  of 
Exchequer,  pp.  84-96,  for  an  account  of  the  rise  of  the  English  Assize 
System ;  see  Le  Blant,  Les  Actes  des  Martyrs,  pp.  50- 1 2 1 ,  and  Marquardt's 
Rom.  Staatsverwalt,  p.  365  about  Roman  assizes.  There  were  eleven 
circuits  in  Asia. 


xix.  23-28.]  THE  EPHESIAN  RIOT.  383 


and  vindicates  St.  Luke's  minute  accuracy.  Three 
hundred  years  ago  John  Calvin,  in  his  commentary, 
noted  the  difficulty,  and  explained  it  by  the  supposition 
that  the  proconsul  had  appointed  deputies  or  assessors 
who  held  the  courts  in  his  name.  There  is,  however,  a 
more  satisfactory  explanation.  It  was  the  reign  of 
Nero,  and  his  brutal  example  had  begun  to  debauch  the 
officials  through  the  provinces.  Silanus,  the  proconsul 
of  Asia,  was  disliked  by  Nero  and  by  his  mother  as  a 
possible  candidate  for  the  imperial  crown,  being  of  the 
family  of  Augustus.  Two  of  his  subordinates,  Celer 
and  ./Elius,  the  collectors  of  the  imperial  revenue  in 
Asia,  poisoned  him,  and  as  a  reward  were  permitted 
to  govern  the  province,  enjoying  perhaps  in  common 
the  title  of  proconsul  and  exercising  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  office.^  Finally,  the  tone  of  the  town-clerk's 
words  as  he  ends  his  address  is  thoroughly  that  of  a 
Roman  official.  He  feels  himself  responsible  for  the 
riot,  and  knows  that  he  may  be  called  upon  to  account 
for  it.  Peace  was  what  the  Roman  authorities  sought 
and  desired  at  all  hazards,  and  every  measure  which 
threatened  the  peace,  or  every  organisation,  no  matter 
how  desirable,  a  fire  brigade  even,  which  might  con- 
ceivably be  turned  to  purposes  of  political  agitation, 
was  strictly  discouraged. 

The  correspondence  of  Pliny  with  the  Emperor 
Trajan  some  fifty  years  or  so  later  than  this  riot  is 
the  best  commentary  upon  the  town-clerk's  speech. 
We  find,  for  instance,  in  Pliny's  Letters,  Book  X., 
No.  42,  a  letter  telling  about  a  fire  which  broke  out 
in  Nicomedia,  the  capital  of  Bithynia,  of  which  pro- 
vince Pliny  was  proconsul.     He  wrote  to  the  Emperor 

'   See  Lewiu's  St.  Paul,  i.  337,  338. 


384  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

describing  the  damage  done,  and  suggesting  that  a  fire 
brigade  numbering  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  might 
be  instituted.  The  Emperor  would  not  hear  of  it,  how- 
ever. Such  clubs  or  societies  he  considered  danger- 
ous, and  so  he  wrote  back  a  letter  which  proves  how 
continuous  was  Roman  policy,  how  abhorrent  to  the 
imperial  authorities  were  all  voluntary  organisations 
which  might  be  used  for  the  purposes  of  public  agitation  : 
"  You  are  of  opinion  that  it  would  be  proper  to  establish 
a  company  of  fire-men  in  Nicomedia,  agreeably  to  what 
has  been  practised  in  several  other  cities.  But  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  societies  of  this  sort  have  greatly 
disturbed  the  peace  of  the  province  in  general  and  of 
those  cities  in  particular.  Whatever  name  we  give 
them,  and  for  whatever  purposes  they  may  be  founded, 
they  will  not  fail  to  form  themselves  into  factious 
assemblies,  however  short  their  meetings  will  be " ; 
and  so  Pliny  was  obliged  to  devise  other  measures  for 
the  security  and  welfare  of  the  cities  committed  to  his 
charge.^  The  accidental  burning  of  a  city  would  not 
be  attributed  to  him  as  a  fault,  while  the  occurrence  of 
a  street  riot  might  be  the  beginning  of  a  social  war 
which  would  bring  down  ruin  upon  the  Empire  at  large. 
When  the  recorder  of  Ephesus  had  ended  his  speech 
he  dismissed  the  assembly,  leaving  to  us  a  precious 
record  illustrative  of  the  methods  of  Roman  govern- 
ment, of  the  interior  life  of  Ephesus  in  days  long  gone 
by,  and,  above  all  else,  of  the  thorough  honesty  of 
the  writer  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  impelled  to  trace  the 
earliest  triumphs  of  the  Cross  amid  the  teeming  fields 
of  Gentile  paganism. 

'  A  similar  jealousy  of  voluntary  organisations  is  still  perpetuated  in 
France  under  the  code  Napoleon,  which  largely  embodies  Roman 
methods  and  ideas. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

ST.  PAUL  AND   THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 

"  And  after  the  uproar  was  ceased,  Paul  having  sent  for  the  disciples 
and  exhorted  them,  took  leave  of  them,  and  departed  for  to  go  into 
Macedonia.  .  .  .  And  upon  the  first  day  of  the  week,  when  we  were 
gathered  together  (at  Troas)  to  break  bread,  Paul  discoursed  with  them, 
intending  to  depart  on  the  morrow;  and  prolonged  his  speech  until 
midnight.  .  .  .  And  from  Miletus  he  sent  to  Ephesus,  and  called  to  him 
the  elders  of  the  church.  And  when  they  were  come  to  him,  he  said 
unto  them,  Ye  yourselves  know,  from  the  first  day  I  set  foot  in  Asia, 
after  what  manner  I  was  with  you  all  the  time,  serving  the  Lord  with 
all  lowliness  of  mind,  and  with  tears.  .  .  ,  Take  heed  unto  yourselves, 
and  to  all  the  flock,  in  the  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you 
bishops,  to  feed  the  Church  of  God,  which  He  purchased  with  His  own 
blood." — Acts  xx.  i,  7,  17-19,  28. 

THE  period  of  St.  Paul's  career  at  which  we  have  now 
arrived  was  full  of  life,  vigour,  activity.  He  was 
in  the  very  height  of  his  powers,  was  surrounded  with 
responsibilities,  was  pressed  with  cares  and  anxieties ; 
and  yet  the  character  of  the  sacred  narrative  is  very 
peculiar.  From  the  passover  of  the  year  57,  soon  after 
which  the  Apostle  had  to  leave  Ephesus,  till  the  pass- 
over  of  the  next  year,  we  learn  but  very  little  of  St. 
Paul's  work  from  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke.  The  five 
verses  with  which  the  twentieth  chapter  begins  tell  us 
all  that  St.  Luke  apparently  knew  about  the  Apostle's 
actions  during  that  time.  He  gives  us  the  story  of  a 
mere  outsider,  who  knew  next  to  nothing  of  the  work 
St.  Paul  was  doing.  The  Apostle  left  Ephesus  and 
VOL.  II.  385  25 


386  THE  ACTS   OF   THE  APOSTLES. 

went  into  Macedonia,  whence  he  departed  into  Greece. 
Three  months  were  occupied  in  teaching  at  Corinth,  and 
then,  intending  to  sail  from  Cenchreae  to  Ephesus,  he 
suddenly  changed  his  mind  upon  the  discovery  of  a 
Jewish  plot,  altered  his  route,  disappointed  his  foes, 
and  paid  a  second  visit  to  Macedonia.  In  this  narra- 
tive, which  is  all  St.  Luke  gives,  we  have  the  account, 
brief  and  concise,  of  one  who  was  acquainted  merely 
with  the  bare  outlines  of  the  Apostle's  work,  and  knew 
nothing  of  his  inner  life  and  trials.  St.  Luke,  in  fact, 
was  so  much  taken  up  with  his  own  duties  at  Philippi, 
where  he  had  been  labouring  for  the  previous  five 
years,  that  he  had  no  time  to  think  of  what  was  going 
on  elsewhere.  At  any  rate  his  friend  and  pupil 
Theophilus  had  simply  asked  him  for  a  narrative  so 
far  as  he  knew  it  of  the  progress  of  the  gospel.  He 
had  no  idea  that  he  was  writing  anything  more  than 
a  story  for  the  private  use  of  Theophilus,  and  he  there- 
fore put  down  what  he  knew  and  had  experienced, 
without  troubling  himself  concerning  other  matters. 
I  have  read  criticisms  of  the  Acts — proceeding  prin- 
cipally, 1  must  confess,  from  German  sources — which 
seem  to  proceed  on  the  supposition  that  St.  Luke  was 
consciously  writing  an  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  whole 
early  Church  which  he  knew  and  felt  was  destined  to 
serve  for  ages.^     But  this  was  evidently  not  the  case. 

'  I  do  not  wish  to  decry  the  industry  and  learning  of  German  critics, 
to  whom  I  owe  much,  as  my  various  references  show ;  but  I  am  always 
suspicious  of  their  historical  conclusions,  simply  because  they  are  pure 
students,  and  are  therefore  ignorant  of  life  and  men.  The  more  indus- 
trious and  secluded  a  life  a  man  may  lead,  so  much  the  more  ignorant  of 
the  practical  world  a  man  becomes,  and  so  much  the  more  unfitted  to  be 
a  real  historian,  who  must  know  men  as  well  as  books.  History  is  a 
picture  of  real  life  in  the  past,  and  to  paint  it  a  man  must  know  real 
life  in  the  present.     As  well  might  we  set  an  academic  scientist  who 


XX.  1,7-]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    387 

St.  Luke  was  consciously  writing  a  story  merely  for  a 
friend's  study,  and  dreamt  not  of  the  wider  fame  and  use 
destined  for  his  book.  This  accounts  in  a  simple  and 
natural  way,  not  only  for  what  St.  Luke  inserts,  but  also 
for  what  he  leaves  out,  and  he  manifestly  left  out  a  great 
deal.  We  may  take  this  passage  at  which  we  have 
now  arrived  as  an  illustration  of  his  methods  of  writing 
sacred  history.  This  period  of  ten  months,  from  the  time 
St,  Paul  left  Ephesus  till  he  returned  to  Philippi  at  the 
following  Easter  season,  was  filled  with  most  important 
labours  which  have  borne  fruit  unto  all  ages  of  the 
Church,  yet  St.  Luke  dismisses  them  in  a  few  words. 
Just  let  us  reaHse  what  happened  in  these  eventful 
months.  St.  Paul  wrote  First  Corinthians  in  April  a.d. 
57.  In  May  he  passed  to  Troas,  where,  as  we  learn  from 
Second  Corinthians,  he  laboured  for  a  short  time  with 
much  success.  He  then  passed  into  Macedonia,  urged 
on  by  his  restless  anxiety  concerning  the  Corinthian 
Church.  In  Macedonia  he  laboured  during  the  follow- 
ing five  or  six  months.  How  intense  and  absorbing 
must  have  been  his  work  during  that  time  !  It  was 
then  that  he  preached  the  gospel  with  signs  and  wonders 

regarded  all  lines  as  straight  and  all  bars  as  rigid  to  build  the  Forth 
Bridge,  as  set  a  man  who  knows  nothing  of  human  nature  and  how  it 
acts  under  the  stress  of  practical  affairs  to  write  the  story  of  human 
life  two  thousand  years  ago.  We  may  take  and  use  German  investiga- 
tions, but  we  should  apply  English  common  sense  and  experience  to 
test  German  conclusions.  This  rule  is,  I  fear,  too  much  forgotten  in  a 
great  deal  of  the  literature  that  is  now  being  pawned  off  upon  the 
English  world  in  the  name  of  criticism.  Surely  the  fate  of  Baur's 
theories  ought  to  be  a  warning  to  all  young  men  against  swallowing 
as  the  latest  results  of  scholarship  everything  that  comes  clothed  in  the 
German  language  !  The  English  nation  has  a  reputation  for  solid 
common  sense.  What  fools  the  Germans  would  be  did  they  take 
everything  English  as  full  of  common  sense  because  printed  in  our 
language ! 


388  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

round  about  even  unto  Illyricum,  as  he  notes  in  Romans 
xvi.  19,  an  epistle  written  this  very  year  from  Corinth. 
The  last  time  that  he  had  been  in  Macedonia  he  was  a 
hunted  fugitive  fleeing  from  place  to  place.  Now  he 
seems  to  have  lived  in  comparative  peace,  so  far  at  least 
as  the  Jewish  synagogues  were  concerned.  He  pene- 
trated, therefore,  into  the  mountainous  districts  west 
of  Beroea,  bearing  the  gospel  tidings  into  cities  and 
villages  which  had  as  yet  heard  nothing  of  them.  But 
preaching  was  not  his  only  work  in  Macedonia.  He  had 
written  his  first  Epistle  to  Corinth  from  Ephesus  a  few 
months  before.  In  Macedonia  he  received  from  Titus, 
his  messenger,  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which  that 
epistle  had  been  received,  and  so  from  Macedonia  he 
despatched  his  second  Corinthian  Epistle,  which  must  be 
carefully  studied  if  we  desire  to  get  an  adequate  idea 
of  the  labours  and  anxieties  amid  which  the  Apostle 
was  then  immersed  (see  2  Cor.  ii.  13,  and  vii.  5  and  6). 
And  then  he  passed  into  Greece,  where  he  spent  three 
months  at  Corinth,  settling  the  affairs  of  that  very 
celebrated  but  very  disorderly  Christian  community. 
The  three  months  spent  there  must  have  been  a  period 
of  overwhelming  business.  Let  us  recount  the  subjects 
which  must  have  taken  up  every  moment  of  St.  Paul's 
time.  First  there  were  the  affairs  of  the  Corinthian 
Church  itself.  He  had  to  reprove,  comfort,  direct,  set 
in  order.  The  whole  moral,  spiritual,  social,  intellec- 
tual conceptions  of  Corinth  had  gone  wrong.  There 
was  not  a  question,  from  the  most  elementary  topic  of 
morals  and  the  social  considerations  connected  with 
female  dress  and  activities,  to  the  most  solemn  points 
of  doctrine  and  worship,  the  Resurrection  and  the  Holy 
Communion,  concerning  which  difficulties,  disorders, 
and  dissensions  had  not  been  raised.     All  these  had 


XX.  I,  7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    389 

to  be  investigated  and  decided  by  the  Apostle.  Then, 
again,  the  Jewish  controversy,  and  the  oppositions 
to  himself  personally  which  the  Judaising  party  had 
excited,  demanded  his  careful  attention.  This  contro- 
versy was  a  troublesome  one  in  Corinth  just  then, 
but  it  was  a  still  more  troublesome  one  in  Galatia, 
and  was  fast  raising  its  head  in  Rome.  The  affairs 
of  both  these  great  and  important  churches,  the  one  in 
the  East,  the  other  in  the  West,  were  pressing  upon 
St.  Paul  at  this  very  time.  While  he  was  immersed 
in  all  the  local  troubles  of  Corinth,  he  had  to  find 
time  at  Corinth  to  write  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
and  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  How  hard  it  must 
have  been  for  the  Apostle  to  concentrate  his  attention 
on  the  affairs  of  Corinth  when  his  heart  and  brain 
were  torn  with  anxieties  about  the  schisms,  divisions, 
and  false  doctrines  whicA  were  flourishing  among  his 
Galatian  converts,  or  threatening  to  invade  the  Church 
at  Rome,  where  as  yet  he  had  not  been  able  to  set 
forth  his  own  conception  of  gospel  truth,  and  thus 
fortify  the  disciples  against  the  attacks  of  those  subtle 
foes  of  Christ  who  were  doing  their  best  to  turn  the 
Catholic  Church  into  a  mere  narrow  Jewish  sect,  devoid 
of  all  spiritual  power  and  life. 

But  this  was  not  all,  or  nearly  all.  St.  Paul  was 
at  the  same  time  engaged  in  organising  a  great 
collection  throughout  all  the  churches  where  he  had 
ministered  on  behalf  of  the  poor  Christians  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  he  was  compelled  to  walk  most  warily 
and  carefully  in  this  matter.  Every  step  he  took  was 
watched  by  foes  ready  to  interpret  it  unfavourably ; 
every  appointment  he  made,  every  arrangement,  no 
matter  how  wise  or  prudent,  was  the  subject  of  keenest 
scrutiny  and  criticism.     With  all  these  various  matters 


390  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


accumulating  upon  him  it  is  no  wonder  that  St.  Paul 
should  have  written  of  himself  at  this  very  period  in 
words  which  vividly  describe  his  distractions  :  "  Beside 
those  things  that  are  without,  there  is  that  which 
presseth  upon  me  daily,  the  care  of  all  the  churches." 
And  yet  St.  Paul  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  greatness 
of  his  soul  as  we  read  the  epistles  which  were  the 
outcome  of  this  period  of  intense  but  fruitful  labour. 
He  carried  a  mighty  load,  but  yet  he  carried  it  lightly. 
His  present  anxieties  were  numerous,  but  they  did  not 
shut  out  all  thoughts  upon  other  topics.  The  busiest 
man  then  was  just  the  same  as  the  busiest  man  still. 
He  was  the  man  who  had  the  most  time  and  leisure  to 
bestow  thought  upon  the  future.  The  anxieties  and 
worries  of  the  present  were  numerous  and  exacting,  but 
St.  Paul  did  not  allow  his  mind  to  be  so  swallowed  up 
in  them  as  to  shut  out  all  care  about  other  questions 
equally  important.  While  he  was  engaged  in  the 
manifold  cares  which  present  controversies  brought, 
he  was  all  the  while  meditating  a  mission  to  Rome, 
and  contemplating  a  journey  still  farther  to  Spain  and 
Gaul,^  and  the  bounds  of  the  Western  ocean.  And 
then,  finally,  there  was  the  care  of  St.  Paul's  own  soul, 
the  sustenance  and  development  of  his  spirit  by  prayer 
and  meditation  and  worship  and  reading,  which  he 
never  neglected  under  any  circumstances.  All  these 
things  combined  must  have  rendered  this  period  of 
close  upon  twelve  months  one  of  the  Apostle's  busiest 
and  intensest  times,  and  yet  St.  Luke  disposes  of  it  in 
a  few  brief  verses  of  this  twentieth  chapter. 

'  I  say  to  Gaul,  because  I  take  it  that  he  would  have  sailed  to 
Marseilles,  which  was  then  the  great  port  of  communication  with  Asia 
Minor,  as  we  have  noted  above,  pp.  372-74,  when  treating  of  the 
worship  of  Diana  and  its  extension  from  the  East  to  Marseilles. 


XX.  1,7.]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    391 

After  St.  Paul's  stay  at  Corinth,  he  determined  to 
proceed  to  Jerusalem  according  to  his  predetermined 
plan,  bringing  with  him  the  proceeds  of  the  collection 
which  he  had  made.  He  wished  to  go  by  sea,  as  he  had 
done  some  three  years  before,  sailing  from  Cenchreae 
direct  to  Syria.  The  Jews  of  Corinth,  however,  were 
as  hostile  as  ev^er,  and  so  they  hatched  a  plot  to 
murder  him  before  his  embarkation.  St.  Paul,  however, 
having  learned  their  designs,  suddenly  changed  his 
route,  and  took  his  journey  by  laad  through  Macedonia, 
visiting  once  more  his  former  converts,  and  tarrying 
to  keep  the  passover  at  Philippi  with  the  little  company 
of  Christian  Jews  who  there  resided.  This  circumstance 
throws  light  upon  verses  4  and  5  of  this  twentieth  chap- 
ter, which  run  thus  :  "  There  accompanied  him  as  far  as 
Asia  Sopater  of  Beroea,  the  son  of  Pyrrhus ;  and  of  the 
Thessalonians,  Aristarchus  and  Secundus  ;  and  Gaius 
of  Derbe,  and  Timothy;  and  of  Asia,  Tychicus  and 
Trophimus.  But  these  had  gone  before,  and  were  wait- 
ing for  us  at  Troas."  St.  Paul  came  to  Philippi,  found 
St.  Luke  there,  celebrated  the  passover,  and  then  sailed 
away  with  St.  Luke  to  join  the  company  who  had  gone 
before.  And  they  had  gone  before  for  a  very  good  reason. 
They  were  all,  except  Timothy,  Gentile  Christians, 
persons  therefore  who,  unlike  St.  Paul,  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  national  rites  and  customs  of  born  Jews, 
and  who  might  be  much  more  profitably  exercised  in 
working  among  the  Gentile  converts  at  Troas,  free  from 
any  danger  of  either  giving  or  taking  offence  in  con- 
nexion with  the  passover,  a  lively  instance  of  which 
danger  Trophimus,  one  of  their  number,  subsequently 
afforded  in  Jerusalem,  when  his  presence  alone  in 
St.  Paul's  company  caused  the  spread  of  a  rumour 
which    raised  the  riot  so   fatal  to  St.   Paul's   liberty : 


392  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

"For  they  had  seen  with  him  in  the  city  Trophimus 
the  Ephesian,  whom  they  supposed  that  Paul  had 
brought  into  the  temple"  (xxi.  29).  This  incident, 
together  with  St.  Paul's  conduct  at  Jerusalem  as  told 
in  the  twenty-sixth  verse  of  the  twenty-first  chapter 
illustrates  vividly  St.  Paul's  view  of  the  Jewish  law 
and  Jewish  rites  and  ceremonies.  They  were  for 
Jews  national  ceremonies.  They  had  a  meaning  for 
them.  They  commemorated  certain  national  deliver- 
ances, and  as  such  might  be  lawfully  used.  St.  Paul 
himself  could  eat  the  passover  and  cherish  the  feelings 
of  a  Jew,  heartily  thankful  to  God  for  the  deliverance 
from  Egypt  wrought  out  through  Moses  centuries  ago 
for  his  ancestors,  and  his  mind  could  then  go  on  and 
rejoice  over  a  greater  deliverance  still  wrought  out  at 
this  same  paschal  season  by  a  greater  than  Moses.  St. 
Paul  openly  proclaimed  the  lawfulness  of  the  Jewish 
rites  for  Jews,  but  opposed  their  imposition  upon  the 
Gentiles.  He  regarded  them  as  tolerabiles  ineptice^  and 
therefore  observed  them  to  please  his  weaker  brethren ; 
but  sent  his  Gentile  converts  on  before,  lest  perhaps  the 
sight  of  his  own  example  might  weaken  their  faith  and 
lead  them  to  a  compliance  with  that  Judaising  party 
who  were  ever  ready  to  avail  themselves  of  any  oppor- 
tunity to  weaken  St.  Paul's  teaching  and  authority. 
St.  Paul  always  strove  to  unite  wisdom  and  prudence 
with  faithfulness  to  principle  lest  by  any  means  his 
labour  should  be  in  vain. 

St.  Luke  now  joined  St.  Paul  at  Philippi,  and  hence- 
forth gives  his  own  account  of  what  happened  on  this 
eventful  journey.  From  Philippi  they  crossed  to  Troas. 
It  was  the  spring-time,  and  the  weather  was  more 
boisterous  than  later  in  the  year,  and  so  the  voyage 
tpok    five    days    to    accomplish,    while    two    days    had 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    393 

sufficed  on  a  previous  occasion.  They  came  to  Troas, 
and  there  remained  for  a  week,  owing  doubtless  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  ship  and  its  cargo.  On  the  first  day 
of  the  week  St.  Paul  assembled  the  Church  for  worship. 
The  meeting  was  held  on  what  we  should  call  Saturday 
evening;  but  we  must  remember  that  the  Jewish  first 
day  began  from  sundown  on  Saturday  or  the  Sabbath.-^ 
This  is  the  first  notice  in  the  Acts  of  the  observance  of 
the  Lord's  day  as  the  time  of  special  Christian  worship. 
We  have,  however,  earlier  notices  of  the  first  day  in 
connexion  with  Christian  observances.  The  apostles, 
for  instance,  met  together  on  the  first  day,  as  we  are 
told  in  John  xx.  19,  and  again  eight  days  after,  as  the 
twenty-sixth  verse  of  the  same  chapter  tells.  St.  Paul's 
first  Epistle  to  Corinth  was  written  twelve  months 
earlier  than  this  visit  to  Troas,  and  it  expressly  men- 
tions (ch.  xvi.  2)  the  first  day  of  the  week  as  the  time 
ordered  by  St.  Paul  for  the  setting  apart  of  the  Galatian 
contribution  to  the  collection  for  the  poor  saints  at 
Jerusalem  ;  and  so  here  again  at  Troas  we  see  that  the 
Asiatic  Christians  observed  the  same  solemn  time  for 
worship  and  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist.  Such 
glimpses — chance  notices,  we  might  call  them,  were  there 
not  a  higher  Providence  watching  over  the  unconscious 
writer — show  us  how  little  we  can  conclude  from  mere 
silence  about  the  ritual,  worship,  and  government  of  the 
Apostolic  Church,^  and  illustrate  the  vast  importance  of 

'  There  is  to  this  day  a  trace  of  this  custom  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  in  the  rubric  which  prescribes  that  the  collect  for  Sunday  shall 
be  said  on  Saturday  evening.  In  colleges,  too,  according  to  Archbishop 
Laud's  rules,  surplices  are  worn  on  Saturday  evenings  as  well  as  on 
Sundays. 

^  See  above,  pp.  342  and  361,  where  I  have  pointed  out  the 
dangerous  character  of  the  argument  from  meie  silence.  I  may  perhaps 
recur  to  the  example  of  Meyer,  the  eminent  textual  critic,  to  illustrate  my 


394  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Studying  carefully  the  extant  records  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  the  second  century  if  we  wish  to  gain 
fresh  light  upon  the  history  and  customs  of  the 
apostolic  age.  If  three  or  four  brief  texts  were  blotted 
out  of  the  New  Testament,  it  would  be  quite  possible 
to  argue  from  silence  merely  that  the  apostles  and  their 
immediate  followers  did  not  observe  the  Lord's  Day  in 
any  way  whatsoever,  and  that  the  custom  of  stated 
worship  and  solemn  eucharistic  celebrations  on  that 
day  were  a  corruption  introduced  in  post-apostolic 
times.  The  best  interpreters  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are,  as  John  Wesley  long  ago  well  pointed  out 
in  his  preface  to  his  celebrated  but  now  almost  un- 
known Christian  Library,  the  apostolic  fathers  and 
the  writers  of  the  age  next    following    the    apostles.^ 


view  of  German  critics  stated  in  my  first  note  to  this  chapter,  p.  386 
above.  Meyer  is  an  exhaustive  textual  critic,  but  as  soon  as  he  ventures 
on  the  region  of  history  he  falls  into  this  trap,  and  concludes  from  the 
argument  of  silence  that  Apollos  was  never  baptized  with  Christian 
baptism  because  he  was  so  clever  and  spiritually  enlightened  that  he  did 
not  need  it.  But,  then,  how  does  he  account  for  the  case"  of  St.  Paul  ? 
Was  Apollos  superior  to  St.  Paul  ?  And  yet  he  was  baptized.  But  the 
illustrations  of  the  fallacies  of  this  method  of  argumentation  would  be 
endless.  If  the  argument  of  silence  is  sufficient  to  prove  a  negative, 
what  are  we  to  do  with  female  commxmicants  ?  There  is  not  a  single 
instance  of  them  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  here,  however,  that  the 
study  of  the  second-century  writers  is  so  valuable  as  illustrating  the 
silence  of  the  first.     See  my  note  on  p.  342  above. 

'  The  Christian  library  was  a  series  of  fifty  volumes  which  "Wesley 
published  for  the  use  of  his  followers.  They  were  begun  in  1749  and 
completed  in  1755.  "The  opening  volume  contains,  I.  The  Epistles 
of  the  apostolical  fathers  Clement,  Ignatius,  and  Polycarp,  whom  he 
believed  to  be  endued  with  the  extraordinary  assistance  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  whose  writings,  though  not  of  equal  authority  with  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  are  worthy  of  a  much  greater  respect  than  any  composures  that 
have  been  made  since.  2.  The  martyrdoms  of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp. 
3.  An  extract  from  the  Homilies  of  Macarius,  born  about  the  year  301." 
See  Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  ii.  25,  65-67. 


XX.  I,  7.]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    395 

We  may  take  it  for  a  certain  rule  of  interpretation 
that,  whenever  we  find  a  widely  established  practice 
or  custom  mentioned  in  the  writings  of  a  Christian 
author  of  the  second  century,  it  originated  in  apostolic 
times.  It  was  only  natural  that  this  should  have 
been  the  case.  We  are  all  inclined  to  venerate  the 
past,  and  to  cry  it  up  as  the  golden  age.  Now  this 
tendency  must  have  been  intensified  tenfold  in  the  case 
of  the  Christians  of  the  second  century.  The  first 
century  was  the  time  of  our  Lord  and  the  age  of  the 
apostles.  Sacred  memories  clustered  thick  round  it,  and 
every  ceremony  and  rite  which  came  from  that  time 
must  have  been  profoundly  reverenced,  while  every  new 
ceremony  or  custom  must  have  been  rudely  challenged, 
and  its  author  keenly  scrutinised  as  one  who  presump- 
tuously thought  he  could  improve  upon  the  wisdom 
of  men  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  miraculously 
gifted  by  God.  It  is  for  this  reason  we  regard  the 
second-century  doctors  and  apologists  as  the  best  com- 
mentary upon  the  sacred  writers,  because  in  them 
we  see  the  Church  of  the  apostolic  age  living,  acting, 
displaying  itself  amid  the  circumstances  and  scenes  of 
actual  life. 

Just  let  us  take  as  an  illustration  the  case  of  this 
observance  of  the  first  day  of  the  week.  The  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  tells  us  but  very  little  about  it,  simply 
because  there  is  but  little  occasion  to  mention  what 
must  have  seemed  to  St.  Luke  one  of  the  commonest 
and  best-known  facts.  But  Justin  Martyr  some  eighty 
years  later  was  describing  Christianity  for  the  Roman 
Emperor.  He  was  defending  it  against  the  outrageous 
and  immoral  charges  brought  against  it,  and  depicting 
the  purity,  the  innocency,  and  simplicity  of  its  sacred 
rites.     Among   other  subjects  dealt  with,   he   touches 


396  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

upon  the  time  when  Christians  offered  up  formal  and 
stated  worship.  It  was  absolutely  necessary  therefore 
for  him  to  treat  of  the  subject  of  the  Lord's  Day.  In 
the  sixty-seventh  chapter  of  Justin's  First  Apology, 
we  find  him  describing  the  Christian  weekly  festival  in 
words  which  throw  back  an  interesting  light  upon  the 
language  of  St.  Luke  touching  the  Lord's  Day  which 
St.  Paul  passed  at  Troas.  Justin  writes  thus  on  this 
topic  :  "  Upon  the  day  called  Sunday  all  who  live  in 
cities  or  in  the  country  gather  together  unto  one  place, 
and  the  memoirs  of  the  apostles  or  the  writings  of  the 
prophets  are  read,  as  long  as  time  permits  ;  then,  when 
the  reader  has  ceased,  the  president  verbally  instructs, 
and  exhorts  to  the  imitation  of  these  good  things.  Then 
we  all  rise  together  and  pray,  and  as  we  before  said, 
when  our  prayer  is  ended,  bread  and  wine  and  water 
are  brought,  and  the  president  in  like  manner  offers 
prayers  and  thanksgivings  according  to  his  ability, 
and  the  people  assent,  saying  Amen ;  ^  and  there  is  a 
distribution  to  each,  and  a  participation  of  that  over 
which  thanks  have  been  given,  and  to  those  who  are 


'  Here  we  have  an  illustration  of  i  Cor.  xiv.  i6  :  "  Else  if  thou  bless 
with  the  Spirit,  how  shall  he  that  filleth  the  place  of  the  unlearned  say 
the  Amen  at  the  giving  of  thanks,  seeing  he  understand  eth  not  what 
thou  sayest  ?  "  See  also  ch,  Ixv.  of  Justin's  same  Apology  for  another 
reference  to  the  Amen,  and  cf.  Apost.  Constitutions,  viii.  lo  ;  Cyril  of 
Jerusalem,  Cat.,  ch.  v. ;  Euseb.,  H.  E.,  vi.  43  and  vii.  9  ;  Ambros. 
De  Sacrament.,  iv.  4  ;  Jerom.,  Episl.,  62;  Chrysost.,  Hofu.,  xxxv.  on 
1st  Cor.  ;  Bingham's  Antiqq.,  XV.  iii.  26;  and  the  article  on  Amen  in 
the  first  volume  of  Smith's  Diet.  Christ.  Antiqq.  The  preceding  chapters 
of  Justin's  Apology,  Ixv.  and  Ixvi.,  are  full  of  information.  They 
expressly  state  that  in  the  Primitive  Church  no  unbaptized  person  was 
allowed  to  communicate,  an  elementary  point  of  Christian  practice 
about  which  some  persons  and  some  Christian  societies  seem  at  present 
very  uncertain.  Hooker's  words,  Eccles,  Pol.,  Book  V.  ch.  Ixvii.,  are  very 
clear  on  this  topic. 


XX.  1, 7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    397 

absent  a  portion  is  sent  by  the  deacons.  And  those 
who  are  well  to  do  and  wilhng,  give  what  each  thinks 
fit ;  and  what  is  collected  is  deposited  with  the  president, 
who  succours  the  orphans  and  widows,  and  those  who 
through  sickness  or  any  other  cause  are  in  want,  and 
those  who  are  in  bonds,  and  the  strangers  sojourning 
among  us,  and  in  a  word  takes  care  of  all  who  are  in 
need.  But  Sunday  is  the  day  on  which  we  all  hold 
our  common  assembly,  because  it  is  the  first  day  on 
which  God,  having  wrought  a  change  in  the  darkness 
and  matter,  made  the  world;  and  Jesus  Christ  our 
Saviour  on  the  same  day  rose  from  the  dead."  This 
passage  gives  us  a  full  account  of  Christian  customs  in 
the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  when  thousands 
must  have  been  still  alive  who  remembered  the  times 
of  the  apostles,  enabling  us  to  realise  what  must  have 
been  the  character  of  the  assembly  and  of  the  worship 
in  which  St.  Paul  played  a  leading  part  at  Troas.^ 

'  The  continuous  character,  the  strong  conservatism  of  the  early 
Christian  Church  receives  an  interesting  illustration  from  the  history  of 
the  Sabbath  as  distinguished  from  the  Lord's  Day.  The  Jewish  Church 
gave  the  outward  form  to  Christianity  ;  and  though  Christianity  parted 
company  with  Judaism  by  the  end  of  the  fii^st  century,  yet  the  sacred 
character  of  the  Sabbath  was  still  perpetuated  among  the  Gentiles  not- 
withstanding St.  Paul's  strong  language  in  Galatians  and  Colossians. 
In  the  fourtti  century  the  Sabbath  was  observed  in  many  places  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  Lord's  Day.  St.  Athanasius  says  :  "  We  meet 
on  the  Sabbath,  not  indeed  being  infected  with  Judaism,  but  to  worship 
Jesus,  the  Lord  of  the  Sabbath."  Timothy,  one  of  his  successors  at 
Alexandria,  says  that  the  Holy  Communion  was  administered  on  the 
Sabbath  as  on. the  Lord's  Day,  and  that  these  two  were  the  only  days 
on  which  it  was  celebrated  in  that  city.  In  the  time  of  St.  Chrysostom 
the  two  great  weekly  festivals  were  the  Sabbath  and  the  Lord's  Day. 
It  was  the  same  in  the  fifth  century  in  the  Egyptian  monasteries,  where 
the  services  for  Saturday  and  Sunday  were  exactly  the  same.  See  a 
full  account  of  this  matter  in  Bingham's  Antiquities,  Book  XIII.  ch, 
ix.  sec.  iii. 


398  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

There  was,  however,  a  difference  between  the  cele- 
bration at  Troas  and  the  celebrations  of  which  Justin 
Martyr  speaks,  though  we  learn  not  of  this  difference 
from  Justin  himself,  but  from  Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan, 
concerning  which  we  have  often  spoken.  St.  Paul  met 
the  Christians  of  Troas  in  the  evening,  and  celebrated 
the  Holy  Communion  with  them  about  midnight.  It 
was  the  first  day  of  the  week  according  to  Jewish  com- 
putation, though  it  was  what  we  should  call  Saturday 
evening.  The  ship  in  which  the  apostolic  company- 
was  travelling  was  about  to  sail  on  the  morrow,  and 
so  St.  Paul  gladly  joined  the  local  church  in  its 
weekly  breaking  of  bread.  It  was  exactly  the  same 
here  at  Troas  as  reported  by  St.  Luke,  as  it  was  at 
Corinth  where  the  evening  celebrations  were  turned 
into  occasions  of  gluttony  and  ostentation,  as  St.  Paul 
tells  us  in  the  eleventh  of  First  Corinthians.  The 
Christians  evidently  met  at  this  time  in  the  evening  to 
celebrate  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  has  been  often  thought 
that  St.  Paul,  having  referred  just  twelve  months 
before  in  the  First  Corinthian  Epistle  to  the  gross 
abuses  connected  with  the  evening  celebrations  at 
Corinth,  and  having  promised  to  set  the  abuses  of 
Corinth  in  order  when  he  visited  that  church,  did 
actually  change  the  time  of  the  celebration  of  Holy 
Communion  from  the  evening  to  the  morning,  when  he 
spent  the  three  months  there  of  which  this  chapter 
speaks.^  Perhaps  he  did  make  the  change,  but  we  have 
no  information  on  the  point ;  and  if  he  did  make  the 
change  for  Corinth,  it  is  evident  that  he  did  not  intend 
to  impose  it  as  a  rule  upon  the  whole  Christian  Church 

'  St.  Augustine,  in  Epist.,  cxviii.,  Ad  Januar.,  cc.  vi.  vii.,  was  one 
of  the  first  to  suggest  this  idea.  The  passage  is  quoted  by  Bingham, 
Antiqq.,  XV.  vii.  b. 


XX.  1,7.]  57^.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    399 

when  a  few  weeks  after  leaving  Corinth  he  celebrated 
the  Lord's  Supper  at  Troas  in  the  evening.  By  the 
second  century,  however,  the  change  had  been  made. 
Justin  Martyr  indeed  does  not  give  a  hint  as  to  the 
time  when  Holy  Communion  was  administered  in  the 
passages  to  which  we  have  referred.  He  tells  us  that 
none  but  baptized  persons  were  admitted  to  partake 
of  it,  but  gives  us  no  minor  details.  Pliny,  hov/ever, 
writing  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  Bithynia, — and  it  bor- 
dered upon  the  province  where  Troas  was  situated, — 
tells  us  from  the  confession  extracted  out  of  apostate 
Christians  that  "  the  whole  of  their  fault  lay  in  this, 
that  they  were  wont  to  meet  together  on  a  stated  day, 
before  it  was  light,  and  sing  among  themselves  alter- 
nately a  hymn  to  Christ  as  God,  and  to  bind  them- 
selves by  a  sacrament  (or  oath)  not  to  the  commission 
of  any  wickedness,  but  not  to  be  guilty  of  theft  or 
robbery  or  adultery."  After  this  early  service  they 
then  separated,  and  assembled  again  in  the  evening  to 
partake  of  a  common  meal.  The  Agape  or  Love-Feast 
was  united  with  the  Holy  Communion  in  St.  Paul's  day. 
Experience,  however,  showed  that  such  a  union  must 
lead  to  grave  abuses,  and  so  in  that  final  consolidation 
which  the  Church  received  during  the  last  quarter  of 
the  first  century,  when  the  Lord's  Second  Coming  was 
seen  to  be  not  so  immediate  as  some  at  first  expected, 
the  two  institutions  were  divided  ;  the  Holy  Communion 
being  appointed  as  the  early  morning  service  of  the 
Lord's  Day,  while  the  Agape  was  left  in  its  original 
position  as  an  evening  meal.  And  so  have  matters 
continued  ever  since.  The  Agape  indeed  has  almost 
died  out.  A  trace  of  it  perhaps  remains  in  the  blessed 
bread  distributed  in  Roman  Catholic  churches  on  the 
Continent ;  while  again    the    love- feasts   instituted  by 


400  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

John  Wesley  and  continued  among  his  followers  were 
an  avowed  imitation  of  this  primitive  institution.  The 
Agape  continued  indeed  in  vigorous  existence  for  cen- 
turies, but  it  was  almost  always  found  associated  with 
grave  abuses.  It  might  have  been  innocent  and  useful 
so  long  as  Christian  love  continued  to  burn  with  the 
fervour  of  apostolic  days,  though  even  then,  as  Corinth 
showed,  there  were  lurking  dangers  in  it ;  but  when  we 
reach  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  we  find  council 
after  council  denouncing  the  evils  of  the  Agape,  and 
restricting  its  celebration  with  such  effect  that  during 
the  Middle  Ages  it  ceased  to  exist  as  a  distinctive 
Christian  ordinance.^  The  change  of  the  Holy  Com- 
munion to  the  earlier  portion  of  the  day  took  almost 
universal  effect,  and  that  from  the  earliest  times.  Ter- 
tuUian  (^De  Corona^  iii.)  testifies  that  in  his  time  the 
Eucharist  was  received  before  daybreak,  though  Christ 
had  instituted  it  at  a  meal-time.  Cyprian  witnesses 
to  the  same  usage  in  his  sixty-third  Epistle,  where  he 
speaks  of  Christ  as  instituting  the  Sacrament  in  the 
evening,  that  "  the  very  hour  of  the  sacrifice  might 
intimate  the  evening  of  the  world,"  but  then  describes 
himself  as  "  celebrating  the  resurrection  of  the  Lord  in 
the  morning."  ^     St.  Augustine,  as  quoted  above,  writing 


'  See  the  exhaustive  article  on  Agapae  in  Smith's  Diet.  Christ. 
Antiqq.,  vol.  i.,  p.  39. 

'  The  early  Christians  celebrated  the  Holy  Communion  in  memory 
of  Christ's  resurrection  as  much  as  in  memory  of  His  death.  The 
resurrection  of  Christ  was,  in  fact,  the  central  point  of  their  belief  and 
thought.  This  alone  would  have  conduced  to  the  practice  of  early 
morning  communion,  even  before  day,  inasmuch  as  it  was  at  that  time 
the  resurrection  took  place.  Cf.  Diet.  Christ.  Antiqq.,  vol.  i.,  p.  419, 
on  the  hours  of  celebration  of  the  Holy  Communion.  On  p.  41  of 
the  same  volume  the  writer  of  the  article  on  the  Agapas  makes  an 
extraordinary  statement  that  it  was  only  at  the  third  Council  of  Carthage, 


XX.  I,  7-]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    401 

about  400,  speaks  of  fasting  communion  as  the  general 
rule  ;  so  general,  indeed,  that  he  regards  it  as  having 
come  down  from  apostolic  appointment.  At  the  'same 
time  St.  Augustine  recognises  the  time  of  its  original 
institution,  and  mentions  the  custom  of  the  African 
Church  which  once  a  year  had  an  evening  communion 
on  Thursday  before  Easter  in  remembrance  of  the  Last 
Supper  and  of  our  Lord's  action  in  connection  with  it. 
My  own  feeling  on  the  matter  is,  that  early  fasting 
communion  when  there  is  health  and  strength  is  far 
the  most  edifying.  There  is  an  element  of  self-denial 
about  it,  and  the  more  real  self-denial  there  is  about 
our  worship  the  more  blessed  will  that  worship  be. 
A  worship  that  costs  nothing  in  mind,  body,  or  estate 
is  but  a  very  poor  thing  to  offer  unto  the  Lord  of  the 
universe.  But  there  is  no  ground  either  in  Holy 
Scripture  or  the  history  of  the  primitive  Church  justify- 
ing an  attempt  to  put  a  yoke  on  the  neck  of  the 
disciples  which  they  cannot  bear  and  to  teach  that 
fasting  communion  is  binding  upon  all  Christians.  St. 
Augustine  speaks  most  strongly  in  a  passage  we  have 
already  referred  to  (Episi.  cxviii..  Ad  Januar.)  about 
the  benefit  of  fasting  comm.union ;  but  he  admits  the 
lawfulness  of  non-fasting  participation,  as  does  also 
that  great  Greek  divine  St.  Chrysostora,  who  quotes 
the  examples  of  St.  Paul  and  of  our  Lord  Himself 
in  justification  of  such  a  course.^ 

A.D.  391,  that  the  time  of  Eucharistic  celebration  was  changed  to  the 
morning,  and  that  then  the  Agape  was  first  separated  from  the  Holy 
Communion.  The  change  and  the  separation  had  taken  place  in 
Pliny's  time,  as  I  have  already  shown. 

'  This  whole  subject  of  fasting  communion  is  discussed  at  length  with 

all  the  authorities  duly  given  in  Bingham's  Aniiquities,  Book  XV.  ch. 

vii.  sec.  8,  whence  I  have  taken  my  references,  and  where  he  quotes 

Bishop  Fell's  Notes  on  Cyprian,  Epist,  Ixiii.  p.  156,  who  says  that 

VOL.  II.  2O 


402  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  celebration  of  the  Eucharist  was  not  the  only 
subject  which  engaged  St.  Paul's  attention  at  Troas. 
He  preached  unto  the  people  as  well ;  and  following 
his  example  we  find  from  Justin  Martyr's  narrative 
that  preaching  was  an  essential  part  of  the  communion 
office  in  the  days  immediately  following  the  apostles* 
age ;  and  then,  descending  to  lower  times  still,  we  know 
that  preaching  is  an  equally  essential  portion  of  the 
eucharistic  service  in  the  Western  Church,  the  only 
formal  provision  for  a  sermon  according  to  the  English 
liturgy  being  the  rubric  in  the  service  for  the  Holy 
Communion,  which  lays  down  that  after  the  Nicene 
Creed,  "  Then  shall  follow  the  sermon  or  one  of  the 
Homilies  already  set  forth,  or  hereafter  to  be  set  forth, 
by  authority."  St.  Paul's  discourse  was  no  mere 
mechanical  homily,  however.  He  was  not  what  man 
regarded  as  a  powerful,  but  he  was  a  ready  speaker, 
and  one  who  carried  his  hearers  away  by  the  rapt 
intense  earnestness  of  his  manner.  His  whole  soul  was 
full  of  his  subject.  He  was  convinced  that  this  was 
his  last  visit  to  the  churches  of  Asia.  He  foresaw  too 
a  thousand  dangers  to  which  they  would  be  exposed 
after  his  departure,  and  he  therefore  prolonged  his 
sermon  far  into  the  night,  so  far  indeed  that  human 
nature  asserted  its  claims  upon  a  young  man  named 
Eutychus,  who  satin  a  window  of  the  room  where  they 
were  assembled.  Human  nature  indeed  was  never  for 
a  moment  absent  from  these  primitive  Church  assem- 
blies. If  it  was  absent  in  one  shape,  it  was  present 
in  another,  just  as  really  as  in  our  modern  congrega- 
tions,  and    so    Eutychus    fell    fast   asleep    under    the 

' '  the  custom  of  communicating  after  supper  lasted  for  a  long  time  in 
the  Church  "  :  cf.  Socrates,  ff.  E.,  v.  22,  and  the  Diet.  Christ.  Antiqq., 
vol.  i.,  p.  417,  on  Fasting  Reception  of  H,  C. 


XX.  1,7.]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    403 


heart-searching  exhortations  of  an  inspired  apostle, 
even  as  men  fall  asleep  under  less  powerful  sermons 
of  smaller  men ;  and  as  the  natural  result,  sitting 
in  a  window  left  open  for  the  sake  of  ventilation,  he 
fell  down  into  the  courtyard,  and  was  taken  up  appar- 
ently lifeless.  St.  Paul  was  not  put  out,  however. 
He  took  interruptions  in  his  work  as  the  Master 
took  them.  He  was  not  upset  by  them,  but  he  seized 
them,  utilised  them,  and  then,  having  extracted  the 
sweetness  and  blessedness  which  they  brought  with 
them,  he  returned  from  them  back  to  his  interrupted 
work.  St.  Paul  descended  to  Eutychus,  found  him 
in  a  lifeless  state,  and  then  restored  him.  Men  have 
disputed  whether  the  Apostle  worked  a  miracle  on  this 
occasion,  or  merely  perceived  that  the  young  man  was 
in  a  temporary  faint.  I  do  not  see  that  it  makes  any 
matter  which  opinion  we  form.  St.  Paul's  supernatural 
and  miraculous  powers  stand  on  quite  an  independent 
ground,  no  matter  what  way  we  decide  this  particular 
case.  It  seems  to  me  indeed  from  the  language  of 
St.  Paul — "  Make  3'e  no  ado  ;  for  his  life  is  in  him  " — 
that  the  young  man  had  merely  fainted,  and  that  St. 
Paul  recognised  this  fact  as  soon  as  he  touched  him. 
But  if  any  one  has  strong  opinions  on  the  opposite  side 
I  should  be  sorry  to  spend  time  disputing  a  question 
which  has  absolutely  no  evidential  bearing.  The  great 
point  is,  that  Eutychus  was  restored,  that  St.  Paul's 
long  sermon  was  attended  by  no  fatal  consequences,  and 
that  the  Apostle  has  left  us  a  striking  example  showing 
how  that,  with  pastors  and  people  alike,  intense  enthu- 
siasm, high-strung  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  spiritual 
world,  can  enable  human  nature  to  rise  superior  to  all 
human  wants,  and  prove  itself  master  even  of  the 
conquering  powers  of  sleep  :  "And  when  he  was  gone 


404  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

up,  aPxd  had  broken  the  bread,  and  eaten,  and  had  talked 
with  them  a  long  while,  even  till  break  of  day,  so  he 
departed." 

We  know  nothing  of  what  the  particular  topics  were 
which  engaged  St.  Paul's  attention  at  Troas,  but  we 
may  guess  them  from  the  subject-matter  of  the  address 
to  the  elders  of  Ephesus,  which  takes  up  the  latter 
half  of  this  twentieth  chapter.  Troas  and  Ephesus, 
in  fact,  were  so  near  and  so  similarly  circumstanced 
that  the  dangers  and  trials  of  both  must  have  been  much 
alike.  He  next  passed  from  Troas  to  Miletus.  This 
is  a  considerable  journey  along  the  western  shore  of 
Asia  Minor.  St.  Paul  was  eagerly  striving  to  get  to 
Jerusalem  by  Pentecost,  or  by  Whitsuntide,  as  we  should 
say.  He  had  left  Philippi  after  Easter,  and  now  there 
had  elapsed  more  than  a  fortnight  of  the  seven  weeks 
which  remained  available  for  the  journey  to  Jerusalem. 
How  often  St.  Paul  must  have  chafed  against  the 
manifold  delays  of  the  trading  vessel  in  which  he 
sailed ;  how  frequently  he  must  have  counted  the  days 
to  see  if  sufficient  time  remained  to  execute  his  purpose  ! 
St.  Paul,  however,  was  a  rigid  economist  of  time.  He 
saved  every  fragment  of  it  as  carefully  as  possible. 
It  was  thus  with  him  at  Troas.  The  ship  in  which 
he  was  travelling  left  Troas  early  in  the  morning.  It 
had  to  round  a  promontory  in  its  way  to  the  port  of 
Assos,  which  could  be  reached  direct  by  St.  Paul  in 
half  the  time.  The  Apostle  therefore  took  the  shorter 
route,  while  St.  Luke  and  his  companions  embarked 
on  board  the  vessel.  St.  Paul  evidently  chose  the 
land  route  because  it  gave  him  a  time  of  solitary 
communion  with  God  and  with  himself.  He  felt,  in 
fact,  that  the  perpetual  strain  upon  his  spiritual  nature 
demanded  special  spiritual  support   and  refreshment, 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    405 

which  could  only  be  obtained  in  the  case  of  one  who  led 
such  a  busy  life  by  seizing  upon  every  such  occasion 
as  then  offered  for  meditation  and  prayer.  St.  Paul 
left  Troas  some  time  on  Sunday  morning.  He  joined 
the  ship  at  Assos,  and  after  three  days'  coasting  voyage 
landed  at  Miletus  on  Wednesday,  whence  he  despatched 
a  messenger  summoning  the  elders  of  the  Church  of 
Ephesus  to  meet  him.-^  The  ship  was  evidently  to 
make  a  delay  of  several  days  at  Miletus.  We  conclude 
this  from  the  following  reason.  Miletus  is  a  town 
separated  by  a  distance  of  thirty  miles  from  Ephesus. 
A  space  therefore  of  at  least  two  days  would  be  required 
in  order  to  secure  the  presence  of  the  Ephesian  elders. 
If  a  messenger — St.  Luke,  for  instance — started  imme- 
diately on  St.  Paul's  arrival  at  Miletus,  no  matter  how 
quickly  he  travelled,  he  could  not  arrive  at  Miletus 
sooner  than  Thursday  at  midday.  The  work  of 
collecting  the  elders  and  making  known  to  them  the 
apostolic  summons  would  take  up  the  afternoon  at  least, 
and  then  the  journey  to  Ephesus  either  by  land  or 
water  must  have  occupied  the  whole  of  Friday.  It  is 
very  possible  that  the  sermon  recorded  in  this  twentieth 
of  Acts  was  delivered  on  the  Sabbath,  which,  as  we  have 
noted  above,  was  as  yet  kept  sacred  by  Christians  as 
well  as  by  Jews,  or  else  upon  the  Lord's  Day,  when, 
as  upon  that  day  week  at  Troas,  the  elders  of  Ephesus 
had  assembled  with  the  Christians  of  Miletus  in  order 
to  commemorate  the  Lord's  resurrection. 


'  The  Lives  of  St.  Paul  by  Lewin  and  by  Conybeare  and  Howson 
enter  into  minute  computations  as  to  the  days  of  the  month  upon  which 
the  Apostle  touched  at  the  various  towns  mentioned  in  the  Acts.  I 
can  now  merely  refer  the  reader  to  these  works  for  such  details  about 
St.  Paul's  life,  as  they  scarcely  come  within  the  scope  of  an  expositor's 
duty. 


4o6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

We  have  already  pointed  out  that  we  know  not  the 
subject  of  St.  Paul's  sermon  at  Troas,  but  we  do  know 
the  topics  upon  which  he  enlarged  at  Miletus,  and  we 
may  conclude  that,  considering  the  circumstances  of  the 
time,  they  must  have  been  much  the  same  as  those 
upon  which  he  dwelt  at  Troas.  Some  critics  have  found 
fault  with  St.  Paul's  sermon  as  being  quite  too  much 
taken  up  with  himself  and  his  own  vindication.  But 
they  forget  the  peculiar  position  in  which  St.  Paul  was 
placed,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  truth  of  the  gospel 
was  then  associated  in  the  closest  manner  with  St.  Paul's 
own  personal  character  and  teaching.  The  Apostle  was 
just  then  assailed  all  over  the  Christian  world  wherever 
he  had  laboured,  and  even  sometimes  where  he  was 
only  known  by  name,  with  the  most  frightful  charges  ; 
ambition,  pride,  covetousness,  deceit,  lying,  all  these 
things  and  much  more  were  imputed  to  him  by  his 
opponents  who  wished  to  seduce  the  Gentiles  from  that 
simplicity  and  liberty  in  Christ  into  which  he  had  led 
them.  Corinth  had  been  desolated  by  such  teachers ; 
Galatia  had  succumbed  to  them ;  Asia  was  in  great 
peril.  St.  Paul  therefore,  foreseeing  future  dangers, 
warned  the  shepherds  of  the  flock  at  Ephesus  against 
the  machinations  of  his  enemies,  who  always  began 
their  preliminary  operations  by  making  attacks  upon 
St.  Paul's  character.  This  sufficiently  explains  the 
apologetic  tone  of  St.  Paul's  address,  of  which  we 
have  doubtless  merely  a  brief  and  condensed  abstract 
indicating  the  subjects  of  a  prolonged  conversation  with 
the  elders  of  Ephesus,  Miletus,  and  such  neighbouring 
churches  as  could  be  gathered  together.  We  conclude 
that  St.  Paul's  conference  on  this  occasion  must  have 
been  a  long  one  for  this  reason.  If  St.  Paul  could  find 
matter  sufficient  to  engage  his  attention  for  a  whole 


XX.  1,7-]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    407 

night,  from  sundown  till  sunrise,  in  a  place  like  Troas, 
where  he  had  laboured  but  a  very  short  time,  how 
much  more  must  he  have  found  to  say  to  the  presbyters 
of  the  numerous  congregations  which  must  have  been 
flourishing  at  Ephesus  where  he  had  laboured  for  years 
with  such  success  as  to  make  Christianity  a  prominent 
feature  in  the  social  and  reHgious  life  of  that  idolatrous 
city  ! 

Let  us  now  notice  some  of  the  topics  of  this  address. 
It  may  be  divided  into  four  portions.  The  first  part 
is  retrospective,  and  autobiographical ;  the  second  is 
prospective,  and  sets  forth  his  conception  of  his  future 
course ;  the  third  is  hortatory,  expounding  the  dangers 
threatening  the  Ephesian  Church ;  and  the  fourth  is 
valedictory. 

I.  We  have  the  biographical  portion.  He  begins 
his  discourse  by  recalling  to  the  minds  of  his  hearers 
his  own  manner  of  life, — "Ye  yourselves  know,  from 
the  first  day  that  I  set  foot  in  Asia,  after  what  manner 
I  was  with  you  all  the  time,  serving  the  Lord  with 
all  lowliness  of  mind,  and  with  tears,  and_  with  trials 
which  befell  me  by  the  plots  of  the  Jews " ;  words 
which  show  us  that  from  the  earliest  portion  of  his 
ministry  at  Ephesus,  and  as  soon  as  they  realised 
the  meaning  of  his  message,  the  Jews  had  become  as 
hostile  to  the  Apostle  at  Ephesus  as  they  had  repeatedly 
shown  themselves  at  Corinth,  again  and  again  making 
attempts  upon  his  life.  The  foundations  indeed  of  the 
Ephesian  Church  were  laid  in  the  synagogue  during 
the  first  three  months  of  his  work,  as  we  are  expressly 
told  in  ch.  xix.  8 ;  but  the  Ephesian  Church  must 
have  been  predominantly  Gentile  in  its  composition, 
or  else  the  language  of  Demetrius  must  have  been 
exaggerated  and  the  riot  raised  by  him  meaningless. 


4o8  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

How  could  Demetrius  have  said,  "Ye  see  that  at 
Ephesus  this  Paul  hath  persuaded  and  turned  away 
much  people,  saying  that  they  be  no  gods  which  are 
made  with  hands,"  unless  the  vast  majority  of  his 
converts  were  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  those  pagans 
who  worshipped  Diana?  These  words  also  show  us 
that  during  his  extended  ministry  at  Ephesus  he  was 
left  at  peace  by  the  heathen.  St.  Paul  here  makes  no 
mention  of  trials  experienced  from  pagan  plots.  He 
speaks  of  the  Jews  alone  as  making  assaults  upon  his 
work  or  his  person,  incidentally  confirming  the  state- 
ment of  ch.  xix.  23,  that  it  was  only  when  he  was 
purposing  to  retire  from  Ephesus,  and  during  the 
celebration  of  the  Artemisian  games  which  marked  his 
last  days  there,  that  the  opposition  of  the  pagans 
developed  itself  in  a  violent  shape. 

St.  Paul  begins  his  address  by  fixing  upon  Jewish 
opposition  outside  the  Church  as  his  great  trkl  at 
Ephesus,  just  as  the  same  kind  of  opposition  inside 
the  Church  had  been  his  great  trial  at  Corinth,  and 
was  yet  destined  to  be  a  source  of  trial  to  him  in 
the  Ephesian  Church  itself,  as  we  can  see  from  the 
Pastoral  Epistles.  He  then  proceeds  to  speak  of 
the  doctrines  he  had  taught  and  how  he  had  taught 
them ;  reminding  them  "  how  that  I  shrank  not  from 
declaring  unto  you  anything  that  was  profitable,  and 
teaching  you  publicly,  and  from  house  to  house,  testify- 
ing both  to  Jews  and  Greeks  repentance  toward  God, 
and  faith  toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  St.  Paul 
sets  forth  his  manner  of  teaching.  He  taught  publicly, 
and  public  teaching  was  most  effective  in  his  case, 
because  he  came  armed  with  a  double  power,  the 
powers  of  spiritual  and  of  intellectual  preparation. 
St.  Paul  was  not  a  man  who  thought  that  prayer  and 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    409 

spiritual  life  could  dispense  with  thought  and  mental 
culture.  Or  again,  he  would  be  the  last  to  tolerate 
the  idea  that  diligent  visitation  from  house  to  house 
would  make  up  for  the  neglect  of  that  public  teaching 
v.?hich  he  so  constantly  and  so  profitably  practised. 
Public  preaching  and  teaching,  pastoral  visitation  and 
work,  are  two  distinct  branches  of  labour,  which  at 
various  periods  of  the  Church's  history  have  been 
regarded  in  very  different  lights.  St.  Paul  evidently 
viewed  them  as  equally  important,  the  tendency  in 
the  present  age  is,  however,  to  decry  and  neglect 
preaching  and  to  exalt  pastoral  work — including  under 
that  head  Church  services — out  of  its  due  position. 
This  is,  indeed,  a  great  and  lamentable  mistake.  The 
"  teaching  publicly  "  to  which  St.  Paul  refers  is  the 
only  opportunity  which  the  majority  of  m.en  possess 
of  hearing  the  authorised  ministers  of  religion,  and 
if  the  latter  neglect  the  office  of  public  preaching, 
and  think  the  fag  end  of  a  week  devoted  to  external  and 
secular  labours  and  devoid  of  any  mental  study  and 
preparation  stirring  the  soul  and  refreshing  the  spirit, 
to  be  quite  sufficient  for  pulpit  preparation,  they  cannot 
be  surprised  if  men  come  to  despise  the  religion  that 
is  presented  in  such  a  miserable  light  and  by  such 
inefficient  ambassaoors.^ 

St.  Paul  insists  in  this  passage  on  the  publicity  and 
boldness  of  his  teaching.     There  was  no  secrecy  about 

'  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  greater  want  in  the  Church  of  England 
than  the  revival  of  preaching.  It  is  simply  lamentable  to  see  the 
numbers  who  under  usual  circumstances  will  walk  out  of  church  before 
the  sermon,  and  still  more  lamentable  to  see  the  number  of  men  who 
do  not  go  to  church  at  all.  This  I  attribute  to  the  low  estate  to  which 
the  ordinary  sermon  has  fallen.  In  the  days  of  evangelical  supremacy 
the  pulpit  may  have  been  unduly  exalted ;  now  it  is  unduly  neglected, 
and  with  terrible  results. 


4IO  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

him,  no  hypocrisy ;  he  did  not  come  pretending  one 
view  or  one  line  of  doctrine,  and  then,  having  stolen  in 
secretly,  teaching  a  distinct  system.  In  this  passage, 
which  may  seem  laudatory  of  his  own  methods, 
St.  Paul  is,  in  fact,  warning  against  the  underhand 
and  hypocritical  methods  adopted  by  the  Judaising 
party,  whether  at  Antioch,  Galatia,  or  Corinth.  In 
this  division  of  his  sermon  St.  Paul  then  sets  forth 
the  doctrines  which  were  the  sum  and  substance  of 
the  teaching  which  he  had  given  both  publicly  and 
from  house  to  house.  They  were  repentance  towards 
God,  and  faith  towards  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  that 
not  only  in  the  case  of  the  Jews,  but  also  of  the  Greeks. 
Now  here  we  shall  miss  the  implied  reference  of  St. 
Paul,  unless  we  emphasize  the  words  "  I  shrank  not 
from  declaring  unto  you  anything  that  was  profitable." 
His  Judaising  opponents  thought  there  were  many 
other  things  profitable  for  men  besides  these  two  points 
round  which  St.  Paul's  teaching  turned.  They  regarded 
circumcision  and  Jewish  festivals,  washings  and  sacri- 
fices, as  very  necessary  and  very  profitable  for  the 
Gentiles ;  while,  as  far  as  the  Jews  were  concerned, 
they  thought  that  the  doctrines  on  which  St,  Paul 
insisted  might  possibly  be  profitable,  but  were  not 
at  all  necessary.  St.  Paul  impresses  by  his  words 
the  great  characteristic  differences  between  the  Ebionite 
view  of  Christ  and  of  Christianity  and  that  catholic 
view  which  has  regenerated  society  and  become  a 
source  of  life  and  light  to  the  human  race.^ 

'  I  think  I  hear  in  St.  Paul's  words  in  this  passage  an  echo  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  which  he  had  written  a  month  or  two  previously. 
The  idea,  "  Repentance  towards  God,  and  faith  towards  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  as  the  essence  of  Christianity  is  the  central  idea  of  that 
Epistle. 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    411 

II.  We  have,  then,  the  prospective  portion  of  his 
discourse.  St.  Paul  announces  his  journey  to  Jeru- 
salem, and  professes  his  ignorance  of  his  fate  there. 
He  was  warned  merely  by  the  testimony  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  that  bonds  and  afflictions  were  his  portion  in 
every  city.  He  was  prepared  for  them,  however,  and 
for  death  itself,  so  that  he  might  accomplish  the  ministry 
with  which  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  had  put  him  in  trust. 
He  concluded  this  part  of  his  address  by  expressing 
his  belief  that  he  would  never  see  them  again.  His 
work  among  them  was  done,  and  he  called  them  to 
witness  that  he  was  pure  from  the  blood  of  all  men, 
seeing  that  he  had  declared  unto  them  the  whole  counsel 
of  God.  This  passage  has  given  rise  to  much  debate, 
because  of  St.  Paul's  statement  that  he  knew  that  he 
should  never  see  them  again,  while  the  Epistles  to 
Timothy  and  that  to  Titus  prove  that  after  St.  Paul's 
first  imprisonment,  with  the  notice  of  which  this  book 
of  the  Acts  ends,  he  laboured  for  several  years  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Asia  Minor,  and  paid  lengthened 
visits  to  Ephesus. 

We  cannot  now  bestow  space  in  proving  this  point, 
which  will  be  found  fully  discussed  in  the  various 
Lives  of  St.  Paul  which  we  have  so  often  quoted  :  as, 
for  instance,  in  Lewin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  94,  and  in  Conybeare 
and  Howson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  547.  We  shall  now  merely 
indicate  the  line  of  proof  for  this.  In  the  Epistle  to 
Philemon,  ver.  22,  written  during  his  first  Roman 
imprisonment,  and  therefore  years  subsequent  to  this 
address,  he  indicates  his  expectation  of  a  speedy  deliver- 
ance from  his  bonds,  and  his  determination  to  travel 
eastward  to  Colossae,  where  Philemon  lived  (cf.  Philip- 
pians  i.  25,  ii.  24).  He  then  visited  Ephesus,  where  he 
left  Timothy,  who  had  been  his  companion  in  the  latter 


412  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

portion  of  his  Roman  imprisonment  (cf.  Philem.  i 
and  I  Tim.  i.  3),  expecting  soon  to  return  to  him  in 
the  same  city  (i  Tim.  iii.  14);  while  again  in  2  Tim. 
i,  18  he  speaks  of  Onesiphorus  having  ministered  to 
himself  in  Ephesus,  and  then  in  the  same  Epistle 
(ch.  iv.  20),  written  during  his  second  Roman  im- 
prisonment, he  speaks  of  having  just  left  Trophimus 
at  Miletus  sick.  This  brief  outline,  which  can  be  followed 
up  in  the  volumes  to  which  we  have  referred,  and 
especially  in  Appendix  TI.  in  Conybeare  and  Howson  on 
the  date  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  must  suffice  to  prove 
that  St.  Paul  was  expressing  a  mere  human  expectation 
when  he  told  the  Ephesian  elders  that  he  should  see 
their  faces  no  m^ore.  St.  Luke,  in  fact,  thus  shows  us 
that  St.  Paul  was  not  omniscient  in  his  knowledge,  and 
that  the  inspiration  which  he  possessed  did  not  remove 
him,  as  some  persons  think,  out  of  the  category  of 
ordinary  men  or  free  him  from  their  infirmities.  The 
Apostle  was,  in  fact,  supernaturally  inspired  upon 
occasions.  The  Holy  Ghost  now  and  again  illuminated 
the  darkness  of  the  future  when  such  illumination 
was  necessary  for  the  Church's  guidance  ;  but  on  other 
occasions  St.  Paul  and  his  brother  apostles  were  left 
to  the  guidance  of  their  own  understandings  and  to  the 
conclusions  and  expectations  of  common  sense,  else 
why  did  not  St.  Peter  and  St.  John  read  the  character 
of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  or  of  Simon  Magus  before 
their  sins  were  committed  ?  why  did  St.  Peter  know 
nothing  of  his  deliverance  from  Herod's  prison-house 
before  the  angel  appeared,  when  his  undissembled 
surprise  is  sufficient  evidence  that  he  had  no  expectation 
of  any  such  rescue  ?  These  instances,  which  might 
be  multiplied  abundantly  out  of  St.  Paul's  career  and 
writings,  show  us  that  St.  Paul's  confident  statement  in 


XX.  1,7.]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY-    413 

this  passage  was  a  mere  human  anticipation  which  was 
disappointed  by  the  course  of  events.  The  super- 
natural knowledge  of  the  apostles  ran  on  precisely  the 
same  lines  as  their  supernatural  power,  God  bestowed 
them  both  for  use  according  as  He  saw  fit  and  bene- 
ficial, but  not  for  common  ordinary  every-day  purposes, 
else  why  did  St.  Paul  leave  Trophimxus  at  Miletus  sick, 
or  endure  the  tortures  of  his  own  ophthalmia,  or  exhort 
Timothy  to  take  a  little  wine  on  account  of  his  bodily 
weakness,  if  he  could  have  healed  them  all  by  his 
miraculous  power  ?  Before  we  leave  this  point  v/e  may 
notice  that  here  we  have  an  incidental  proof  of  the  early 
date  of  the  composition  of  the  Acts.  St.  Luke,  as  we 
have  often  maintained,  wrote  this  book  about  the  close 
of  St.  Paul's  first  imprisonment.  Assuredly  if  he  had 
written  it  at  a  later  period,  and  above  all,  if  he  wrote 
it  twenty  years  later,  he  would  have  either  modified 
the  words  of  his  synopsis  of  St.  Paul's  speech,  or  else 
given  us  a  hint  that  subsequent  events  had  shown 
that  the  Apostle  was  mistaken  in  his  expectations, 
a  thing  which  he  could  easily  have  done,  because  he 
cherished  none  of  these  extreme  notions  about  St. 
Paul's  office  and  dignity  which  have  led  some  to  assume 
that  it  was  impossible  for  him  ever  to  make  a  mistake 
about  the  smallest  matters.^ 

III.  This  discourse,  again,  is  hortatory,  and  its  exhor- 
tations contain  very  important  doctrinal  statements. 
St.  Paul  begins  this  third  division  with  an  exhortation 
like  that  which  our  Lord  gave  to  His  apostles  under 
the  same  circumstances,  "  Take  heed  unto  yourselves." 
The  Apostle  never  forgot  that  an  effective  ministry  of 
souls   must    be   based    on   deep   personal    knowledge 

'  See  on  this  point  Dr.  Salmon's  Introduction  to  New  Testament^ 
4th  ed.,  p.  445, 


414  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


of  the  things  of  God.  He  knew,  too,  from  his  own  ex- 
perience that  it  is  very  easy  to  be  so  completely  taken 
up  with  the  care  of  other  men's  souls  and  the  external 
work  of  the  Church,  as  to  forget  that  inner  life  which 
can  only  be  kept  alive  by  close  communion  with  God. 
Then,  having  based  his  exhortations  on  their  own 
spiritual  life,  he  exhorts  the  elders  to  diligence  in  the 
pastoral  office :  "  Take  heed  unto  yourselves,  and  to 
all  the  flock,  in  the  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made 
you  bishops,  to  feed  the  Church  of  God,  which  He 
purchased  with  His  own  blood."  St.  Paul  in  these 
words  shows  us  his  estimate  of  the  ministerial  office. 
The  elders  of  Ephesus  had  been  all  ordained  by  St. 
Paul  himself  with  the  imposition  of  hands,  a  rite  that 
has  ever  been  esteemed  essential  to  ordination.  It  was 
derived  from  the  Jewish  Church,  and  was  perpetuated 
into  the  Christian  Church  by  that  same  spirit  of  con- 
servatism, that  law  of  continuity  which  in  every  depart- 
ment of  life  enacts  that  everything  shall  continue  as  it 
was  unless  there  be  some  circumstance  to  cause  an  altera- 
tion.^ Now  there  was  no  cause  for  alteration  in  this 
case  ;  nay,  rather  there  was  every  reason  to  bring  about 
a  continuance  of  this  custom,  because  imposition  of 
hands  indicates  for  the  people  the  persons  ordained,  and 
assures  the  ordained  themselves  that  they  have  been 
individually  chosen  and   set  apart.     But  St.   Paul    by 

'  This  rule  or  law  is  the  principle  of  Butler's  great  argument  for  a 
future  life  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  Analogy.  He  expressly  states  in 
the  following  words,  "There  is  in  every  case  a  probability  that  things 
will  continue  as  we  experience  they  are,  in  all  respects,  except  those  in 
which  we  have  some  reason  to  think  they  will  be  altered.  This  is  that 
kind  of  presumption  of  probability  from  analogy  expressed  in  the  word 
continuance  which  seems  our  only  natural  reason  for  believing  the 
course  of  the  world  will  continue  to-morrow  as  it  has  done  so  far  back 
as  our  experience  or  knowledge  of  histoiy  can  carry  us  back." 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    415 


these  words  teaches  us  a  higher  and  nobler  view  of  the 
ministry.  He  teaches  us  that  he  was  himself  but  the 
instrument  of  a  higher  power,  and  that  the  imposition  of 
hands  was  the  sign  and  symbol  to  the  ordained  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  had  chosen  them  and  appointed  them  to  feed 
the  flock  of  God.  St.  Paul  here  shows  that  in  ordination, 
as  in  the  sacraments,  we  should  by  faith  look  away 
beyond  and  behind  the  human  instrument,  and  view  the 
actions  of  the  Church  of  Christ  as  the  very  operations 
and  manifestations  in  the  world  of  time  and  sense  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  Himself,  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  life. 
He  teaches  the  Ephesian  elders,  in  fact,  exactly  what 
he  taught  the  Corinthian  Church  some  few  months 
earlier,  "  We  have  this  treasure  in  earthen  vessels, 
that  the  exceeding  greatness  of  the  power  may  be  of 
God,  and  not  from  ourselves "  (2  Cor.  iv.  7) ;  the 
treasure  and  the  power  were  everything,  the  only  things, 
in  fact,  worth  naming,  the  earthen  vessels  which  con- 
tained them  for  a  little  time  were  nothing  at  all.  How 
awful,  solemn,  heart-searching  a  view  of  the  ministerial 
office  this  was  !  How  sustaining  a  view  when  its 
holders  are  called  upon  to  discharge  functions  for  which 
they  feel  themselves  all  inadequate  in  their  natural 
strength  !  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Church,  taking 
the  same  view  as  St.  Paul  did,  has  ever  held  and 
taught  that  the  ministerial  office  thus  conferred  by 
supernatural  power  is  no  mere  human  function  to  be 
taken  up  or  laid  down  at  man's  pleasure,  but  is  a 
life-long  office  to  be  discharged  at  the  holder's  peril, — 
a  savour  of  life  unto  life  for  the  worthy  recipient,  a 
savour  of  death  unto  death  for  the  unworthy  and  the 
careless. 

In  connexion  with  this  statement  made  by  St.  Paul 
concerning  the  source  of  the  ministry  we  find  a  title 


4i6  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


given  to  the  Ephesian  presbyters  round  which  much 
controversy  has  centred.  St.  Paul  says,  "Take  heed 
unto  the  flock,  over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  has  made 
you  bishops"  I  do  not,  however,  propose  to  spend 
much  time  over  this  topic,  as  all  parties  are  now  agreed 
that  in  the  New  Testament  the  term  presbyter  and 
bishop  are  interchangeable  and  applied  to  the  same 
persons.-^     The  question  to  be  decided  is  not  about  a 

'  Irenseus,  however,  writing  in  the  second  century,  states  that  the 
bishops  and  presbyters  of  Ephesus  and  the  neighbouring  cities  were 
assembled  at  Miletus,  so  that  he  distinguishes  between  bishops  and 
presbytei-s  even  on  this  occasion :  see  his  work  Against  Heresies,  iii.  14, 
Dr.  Hatch  had  an  extraordinary  theory,  which  he  elaborates  in  his 
article  "Priest"  in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities,  vol.  ii., 
p.  1700.  He  thus  states  it :  "  Whether  the  institution  of  Presbyters 
existed  in  the  first  instance  outside  the  limits  of  the  Judceo-Christian 
communities  is  doubtful.  There  is  no  evidence  that  it  did  so ;  the 
presumption  is  that  it  did  not,  for  when  St.  Paul,  writing  to  the 
churches  which  were  presumably  non-Jewish  in  their  character,  recog- 
nises the  existence  of  church  officers,  he  designates  them  by  other 
names  :  irpo'CaTdixevoL  (i  Thess.  v.  12),  iirluKOwoi  (Philip,  i.  l)."  To  put 
it  briefly,  his  idea  is  that  bishop  as  a  title  was  confined  to  pre- 
dominantly Greek  communities,  and  presbyter  as  a  title  was  confined  to 
predominantly  Gentile  communities.  Will  this  theory  and  the  instances  he 
gives  stand  the  test  of  facts  ?  Philippi  was,  he  thinks,  a  predominantly 
Gentile  Church,  so  thoroughly  Gentile  that  its  members  would  neces- 
sarily prefer  titles  drawn  from  impure  pagan  sources  rather  than  from 
Judaism.  But  was  Philippi  so  thoroughly  Gentile  ?  If  so,  why  did 
St.  Paul  stay  there  and  celebrate  the  days  of  unleavened  bread  and  the 
passover,  as  we  have  above  noted  ?  A  large  element  in  the  church 
must  have  been  Jewish  when  this  happened.  Again,  take  Thessalonica. 
We  have  already  noted  that  the  majority  of  that  church  must  have 
been  Gentile  in  origin  ;  but  there  must  have  been  a  large  and  influential 
minority  Jewish  by  race  in  a  town  where  the  Jews  were  so  large  an 
element  in  the  population.  Again,  we  find  the  title  presbyter  applied 
to  the  church  officials  of  Ephesus.  Dr.  Hatch  on  the  same  page 
enumerates  Ephesus  among  the  Judceo-Christian  communities,  one, 
therefore,  which  would  presumably  prefer  Jewish  titles  for  its  clergy. 
But  was  it  predominantly  Jewish  ?  St.  Paul  laboured  three  months 
in  the  synagogue  at  Ephesus,  and  was  then  expelled.     He  laboured 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    417 

name,  but  about  an  office,  whether,  in  fact,  any  persons 
succeeded  in  apostoHc  times  to  the  office  of  rule  and 
government  exercised  by  St.  Paul  and  the  rest  of  the 
apostles,  as  well  as  by  Timothy,  Titus,  and  the  other 
delegates  of  the  Apostle,  and  whether  the  term  bishop, 
as  used  in  the  second  century,  was  applied  to  such 
successors  of  the  apostles.^     This,  however,  is  not  a 


there  for  two  years  among  the  Gentiles  with  such  success,  that  Demetrius 
desci'ibes  him  as  having  turned  away  all  Asia  from  Diana's  worship. 
Surely  if  ever  there  was  a  Gentile  Christian  Church  it  was  Ephesus  ! 
(Cf  Ephes.  ii.  and  iii.,  where  the  Gentile  character  of  the  Ephesian 
Church  is  expressly  asserted.)  Yet  here  we  have  the  title  presbyter 
in  use.  Dr.  Hatch's  is  not  scientific  historical  reasoning,  but  the 
exercise  of  what  Bishop  Butler  well  designates,  that  delusive  faculty 
called  man's  imagination  and  fancy.  Upon  this  whole  question  of  the 
origin  of  Christian  presbyters,  I  may  notice  an  exhaustive  Biblical 
inquiry,  called  ' '  The  Ruling  Elder,"  by  the  Rev.  Robert  King  of 
Ballymena,  the  learned  author  of  a  well-known  Irish  Church  History. 
It  appeared  after  this  chapter  was  written. 

'  In  the  second  century  bishops  were  often  called  presbyters, 
though  presbyters  were  not  called  bishops,  or,  to  quote  Bishop  Light- 
foot,  "Essay  on  the  Ministry,"  Philippians^  p.  226  :  "  In  the  language 
of  Irenaeus,  a  presbyter  is  never  designated  a  bishop,  while  on  the  other 
hand  he  very  frequently  speaks  of  a  bishop  as  a  presbyter."  This 
usage  long  continued  in  the  Church.  Cyprian  often  expresses  himself 
thus :  cf  article  on  word  "  Senior  "  in  Did.  Christ.  Antiqq,  Many 
instances  of  it  occur  in  the  literature  of  the  early  Celtic  Church  in 
Ireland,  which  was  an  offslioot  of  the  GalUcan  Church  and,  through 
Gaul,  of  the  Church  of  Western  Asia  Minor.  In  fact,  this  custom 
of  calling  bishops  seniors  or  presbyters  was  used  in  Ireland  till  the 
twelfth  century  :  see  Ussher's  Works,  Ed.  Elrington,  vi.  517,  528.  St. 
Bernard,  for  instance,  in  his  Life  of  St.  MaJachy,  calls  the  Bishop  of 
Lismore  "  Senior  Lesmorensis."  I  do  not,  as  I  have  said,  propose  to 
enter  any  further  into  the  debateable  subject  of  Church  government ; 
but  as  I  have  come  across  this  passage,  and  as  I  have  already  an- 
nounced that  I  am  writing  this  commentary  as  a  decided  Churchman,  I 
may  be  permitted  to  state  my  own  views,  as  history  seems  to  me  to  set 
them  forth,  without  entering  into  any  discussion  on  the  point.  During 
the  apostolic  age  the  terms  bishop  and  presbyter  were  interchangeable. 
As  the  apostles  passed  away,  they  seem  to  me  to  have  established 
VOL.  II.  27 


4i8  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

question  which  comes  directly  within  the  purview  of  an 
expositor  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  as  the  appoint- 
ment of  Timothy  and  Titus  to  manage  the  affairs  of 
the  Church  in  Ephesus  and  in  Crete  lies  beyond  the 
period  covered  by  the  text  of  the  Acts,  and  properly 
belongs  to  the  commentary  on  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 
St.  Paul's  words  in  this  connexion  have,  however,  an 
important  bearing  on  fundamental  doctrinal  questions 
connected  with  the  person  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  presbyters  as  called  "  to  feed 
the  Church  of  God,  which  He  hath  purchased  with  His 
own  blood."  These  words  are  very  strong,  so  strong 
indeed  that  various  readings  have  been  put  forward 
to  mitigate  their  force.  Some  have  read  "  Lord " 
instead  of  "  God,"  others  have  substituted  Christ  for  it ; 
but  the  Revised  Version,  following  the  text  of  Westcott 
and  Hort,  have  accepted  the  strongest  form  of  the  verse 
on    purely  critical   ground,  and  translates  it    as    "  the 

Episcopacy  as  the  normal  rule  of  the  Church,  though,  doubtless,  it  was 
only  by  degrees  that  the  title  of  bishop  was  appropriated  to  the  office  so 
created.  By  the  time  of  Ignatius,  that  is,  about  no  a.d.,  this  appro- 
priation was  complete.  As  regards  my  authority  for  saying  the 
apostles  established  Episcopacy,  I  simply  appeal  to  Irenseus,  who,  in 
his  great  work  against  Heresies,  Book  III.,  ch.  iii.,  states  in  section  i. 
that  "the  apostles  instituted  bishops  in  the  churches,"  and  then 
in  sec.  3  proceeds  to  trace  the  line  of  these  bishops  in  the  Roman 
Church,  beginning  with  Linus,  "  into  whose  hands  the  blessed  apostles 
committed  the  office  of  the  Episcopate. "  Now  it  is  upon  Irenseus  we 
largely  depend  for  the  proof  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  and 
the  Johannine  origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Surely  if  Irenaeus  is  a 
witness  sufficient  to  establish  the  apostolic  origin  of  the  Gospels,  he 
should  be  quite  sufficient  to  establish  the  apostolic  origin  of  Epis- 
copacy !  If  Irenseus  is  a  competent  witness  to  the  true  authorship  of 
an  anonymous  document  like  the  Fourth  Gospel,  he  is  surely  competent 
to  tell  us  of  the  true  origin  of  a  worldwide  institution  like  Episcopacy. 
It  is  assuredly  much  easier  to  learn  the  origin  of  institutions  than  of 
documents. 


XX.  1,7.]  ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    419 

Church  of  God,  which  He  hath  purchased  with  His 
own  blood."  This  passage,  then,  is  decisive  as  to  the 
Christological  views  of  St.  Luke  and  the  PauHne  circle 
generally.  They  believed  so  strongly  in  the  deity  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  His  essential  unity  with  the  Father  that 
they  hesitated  not  to  speak  of  His  sacrifice  on  Calvary 
as  a  shedding  of  the  blood  of  God,  an  expression  which 
some  fifty  years  afterwards  we  find  in  the  Epistle 
of  Ignatius  to  the  Ephesians,  where  St.  Ignatius  speaks 
of  them  as  "kindled  into  living  fire  by  the  blood  of 
God,"  and  a  hundred  years  later  still,  in  Tertullian,  Ad 
Uxor.,  ii.  3.  This  passage  has  been  used  in  scientific 
theology  as  the  basis  of  a  principle  or  theory  called  the 
"  Communicatio  Idiomatum,"  a  theory  which  finds  an 
illustration  in  two  other  notable  passages  of  Scripture, 
St.  John  iii.  13  and  i  Cor.  ii.  8.  In  the  former  passage 
our  Lord  says  of  Himself,  "  No  man  hath  ascended 
into  heaven,  but  He  that  descended  out  of  heaven,  even 
the  Son  of  man  which  is  in  heaven,"  where  the  Son  of 
man  is  spoken  of  as  in  heaven  as  well  as  upon  earth 
at  the  same  time,  though  the  Son  of  man,  according  to 
His  humanity,  could  only  be  in  one  place  at  a  time. 
In  the  second  passage  St.  Paul  says,  "  Which  none  of 
the  rulers  of  this  world  knew ;  for  had  they  known  it, 
they  would  not  have  crucified  the  Lord  of  Glory,"  where 
crucifixion  is  attributed  to  the  Lord  of  Glory,  a  title 
derived  from  His  Divine  nature.  Now  the  term  "  Com- 
municatio Idiomatum,"  or  "  transference  of  peculiar  pro- 
perties," is  given  to  this  usage  because  in  all  these  texts 
the  properties  of  the  nature  pertaining  either  to  God  or 
to  man  are  spoken  of  as  if  they  belonged  to  the  other ; 
or,  to  put  it  far  better  in  the  stately  language  of 
Hooker,  v.  liii.  where  he  speaks  of  "  those  cross  and 
circulatory  speeches  wherein   there   are  attributed  to 


420  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

God  such  things  as  belong  to  manhood,  and  to  man 
such  as  properly  concern  the  deity  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
cause  whereof  is  the  association  of  natures  in  one 
subject.  A  kind  of  mutual  commutation  there  is, 
whereby  those  concrete  names,  God  and  man,  when 
we  speak  of  Christ,  do  take  interchangeably  one 
another's  room,  so  that  for  truth  of  speech  it  skilleth 
not  whether  we  say  that  the  Son  of  God  hath  created 
the  world  and  the  Son  of  man  by  His  death  hath  saved 
it,  or  else  that  the  Son  of  man  did  create  and  the  Son 
of  God  die  to  save  the  world."  This  is  a  subject  of 
profound  speculative  and  doctrinal  interest,  not  only  in 
connexion  with  the  apostolic  view  of  our  Lord's  Person, 
but  also  in  reference  to  the  whole  round  of  m.ethodised 
and  scientific  theology.  We  cannot,  however,  afford 
further  space  for  this  subject.  We  must  be  content  to 
have  pointed  it  out  as  an  interesting  topic  of  inquiry,  and, 
merely  referring  the  reader  to  Hooker  and  to  Liddon's 
Bampton  Lectures  (Lect.  V.)  for  more  information,  must 
hurry  on  to  a  conclusion.  St.  Paul  terminates  this 
part  of  his  discourse  with  expressing  his  belief  in  the 
rapid  development  of  false  doctrines  and  false  guides 
as  soon  as  his  repressive  influence  shall  have  been 
removed  ;  a  belief  which  the  devout  student  of  the 
New  Testament  will  find  to  have  been  realised  when 
in  I  Tim.  i.  20,  in  2  Tim.  i.  15,  and  ii.  17,  18  he  finds 
the  Apostle  warning  the  youthful  Bishop  of  Ephesus 
against  Phygelus  and  Hermogenes,  v>^ho  had  turned 
all  Asia  away  from  St.  Paul,  and  against  Hymenaeus, 
Philetus,  and  Alexander,  v;ho  had  imbibed  the  Gnostic 
error  concerning  matter,  which  had  already  led  the 
Corinthians  to  deny  the  future  character  of  the  Resur- 
rection. St.  Paul  then  terminates  his  discourse  with 
a  solemn    commendation    of  the   Ephesian    elders   to 


XX.  1,7.]   ST.  PAUL  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY.    421 

that  Divine  grace  which  is  as  necessary  for  an  apostle 
as  for  the  humblest  Christian.  He  exhorts  them  to 
self-sacrifice  and  self-denial,  reminding  them  of  his 
own  example,  having  supported  himself  and  his  com- 
panions by  his  labour  as  a  tentmaker  at  Ephesus,  and 
above  all  of  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  which  they 
apparently  knew  from  some  source  which  has  not 
come  down  to  us,  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive." 

When  the  Apostle  had  thus  terminated  his  address, 
which  doubtless  was  a  very  lengthened  one,  he  knelt 
down,  probably  on  the  shore,  as  we  shall  find  him  kneel- 
ing in  the  next  chapter  (xxi.  5,  6)  on  the  shore  at  Tyre, 
He  then  commended  them  in  solemn  prayer  to  God, 
and  they  all  parted  in  deep  sorrow  on  account  of  the 
final  separation  which  St.  Paul's  words  indicated  as 
imminent ;  for  though  the  primitive  Christians  believed 
in  the  reality  of  the  next  life  with  an  intensity  of  faith 
of  which  we  have  no  conception,  and  longed  for  its 
peace  and  rest,  yet  they  gave  free  scope  to  those 
natural  affections  which  bind  men  one  to  another 
according  to  the  flesh  and  were  sanctified  by  the  Master 
Himself  when  He  wept  by  the  grave  of  Lazarus. 
Christianity  is  not  a  religion  of  stoical  apathy,  but  of 
sanctified  human  affections. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

A    PRISONER  IN  BONDS. 

' '  Having  found  a  ship  crossing  over  unto  Phcenicia,  vi'e  went  aboard, 
and  set  sail.  .  .  .  We  sailed  unto  Syria,  and  landed  at  Tyre  :  for  there 
the  ship  was  to  unload  her  burden.  .  .  .  When  we  were  come  to 
Jerusalem,  the  brethren  received  us  gladly.  .  .  .  Then  the  chief  captain 
came  near,  and  laid  hold  on  him,  and  commanded  him  to  be  bound  with 
two  chains  ;  and  inquired  who  he  was,  and  what  he  had  done.  .  .  . 
But  Paul  said,  I  am  a  Jew,  of  Tarsus  in  Cilicia,  a  citizen  of  no  mean 
city  :  and  I  beseech  thee,  give  me  leave  to  speak  unto  the  people." — 
Acts  xxi.  2,  3,  17,  33,  39,  40. 

"  And  they  gave  him  audience  unto  this  word  ;  and  they  lifted  up 
their  voice,  and  said,  Away  with  such  a  fellow  from  the  earth  :  for  it  is 
not  fit  that  he  should  live.  .  .  .  But  on  the  morrow,  desiring  to  know 
the  certainty,  wherefore  he  was  accused  of  the  Jews,  he  loosed  him,  and 
commanded  the  chief  priests  and  all  the  council  to  come  together,  and 
brought  Paul  down,  and  set  him  before  them." — Acts  xxii.  22,  30. 

"  And  after  five  days  the  high  priest  Ananias  came  down  with 
certain  elders,  and  with  an  orator,  one  Tertullus ;  and  they  informed  the 
governor  against  Paul." — Acts  xxiv.  i. 

"  And  Agrippa  said  unto  Paul,  Thou  art  permitted  to  speak  for 
thyself.  Then  Paul  stretched  forth  his  hand,  and  made  his  defence." — 
Acts  xxvi.  i. 

THE  title  we  have  given  to  this  chapter,  "  A  Prisoner 
in  Bonds,"  expresses  the  central  idea  of  the  last 
eight  chapters  of  the  Acts.  Twenty  years  and  more 
had  now  elapsed  since  St.  Paul's  conversion  on  the 
road  to  Damascus.  These  twenty  years  had  been 
times  of  unceasing  and  intense  activity.  Now  we  come 
to  some  five  years  when  the  external  labours,  the 
turmoil  and  the  cares  of  active  life,  have  to  be  put  aside, 

422 


xxi.,  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS  423 

and  St.  Paul  was  called  upon  to  stand  apart  and  learn 
the  lesson  which  every-day  experience  teaches  to  all, — 
how  easily  the  world  can  get  along  without  us,  how 
smoothly  God's  designs  fulfil  themselves  without  our 
puny  assistance.  The  various  passages  we  have  placed 
at  the  head  of  this  chapter  cover  six  chapters  of  the 
Acts,  from  the  twenty-first  to  the  twenty-sixth.  It 
may  seem  a  large  extent  of  the  text  to  be  comprised 
within  the  limits  of  one  of  our  chapters,  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  a  great  deal  of  the  space  thus 
included  is  taken  up  with  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's 
conversion,  which  is  twice  set  forth  at  great  length, 
first  to  the  multitude  from  the  stairs  of  the  tower  of 
Antonia,  and  then  in  his  defence  which  he  delivered 
before  Agrippa  and  Bernice  and  Festus,  or  else  with 
the  speeches  delivered  by  him  before  the  assembled 
Sanhedrin  and  before  Felix  the  governor,  wherein  he 
dwells  on  points  previously  and  sufficiently  discussed.^ 
We  have  already  considered  the  narrative  of  the 
Apostle's  conversion  at  great  length,  and  noted  the 
particular  directions  in  which  St.  Paul's  own  later 
versions  at  Jerusalem  and  Caesarea  throw  light  upon 
St.  Luke's  independent  account.  To  the  earlier  chapters 
of  this  book  we  therefore  would  refer  the  reader  who 
wishes  to  discuss  St.  Paul's  conversion,  and  several  of 
the  other  subjects  which  he  introduces.  Let  us  now, 
however,  endeavour,  first  of  all,  to  gather  up  into  one 
connected  story  the  tale  of  St.  Paul's  journeys,  suffer- 
ings, and  imprisonments  from  the  time  he  left  Miletus 
after  his  famous  address  till  he  set  sail  for  Rome  from 
the  port  of  Caesarea,  a  prisoner  destined  for  the  judg- 

''  Thus  in  ch.  xxiv.  10-16  he  enlarges  upon  the  subject  of  "  the 
Way  which  they  call  a  sect,"  a  topic  and  a  name  fully  discussed  above 
on  pp.  32,  33. 


424  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ment-seat  of  Nero.  This  narrative  will  embrace  from 
at  least  the  summer  of  a.d.  58,  when  he  was  arrested 
at  Jerusalem,  to  the  autumn  of  60,  when  he  set  sail 
for  Rome.  This  connected  story  will  enable  us  to  see 
the  close  union  of  the  various  parts  of  the  narrative 
which  is  now  hidden  from  us  because  of  the  division 
into  chapters,  and  will  enable  us  to  fix  more  easily 
upon  the  leading  points  which  lend  themselves  to  the 
purposes  of  an  expositor. 

I.  St.  Paul,  after  parting  from  the  Ephesian  Church, 
embarked  on  board  his  ship,  and  then  coasted  along 
the  western  shore  of  Asia  Minor  for  three  days, 
sailing  amid  scenery  of  the  most  enchanting  descrip- 
tion, specially  in  that  late  spring  or  early  summer 
season  at  which  the  year  had  then  arrived.  It  was 
about  the  first  of  May,  and  all  nature  was  bursting 
into  new  life,  when  even  hearts,  the  hardest  and 
least  receptive  of  external  influences,  feel  as  if  they 
were  living  a  portion  of  their  youth  over  again.  And 
even  St.  Paul,  rapt  away  in  the  contemplation  of  things 
unseen,  must  have  felt  himself  touched  by  the  beauty 
of  the  scenes  through  which  he  was  passing,  though 
St.  Luke  tells  us  nothing  but  the  bare  succession  of 
events.  Three  days  after  leaving  Miletus  the  sacred 
company  reached  Patara,  a  town  at  the  south-western 
corner  of  Asia  Minor,  where  the  coast  begins  to  turn 
round  towards  the  east.  Here  St.  Paul  found  a  trading 
ship  sailing  direct  to  Tyre  and  Palestine,  and  therefore 
with  all  haste  transferred  himself  and  his  party  into 
it.  The  ship  seems  to  have  been  on  the  point  of 
sailing,  which  suited  St.  Paul  so  much  the  better, 
anxious  as  he  was  to  reach  Jerusalem  in  time  for 
Pentecost.  The  journey  direct  from  Patara  to  Tyre 
is  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  a  three  days' 


xxi,,  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  425 

sail  under  favourable  circumstances  for  the  trading 
vessels  of  the  ancients,  and  the  circumstances  were 
favourable.  The  north-west  wind  is  to  this  day  the 
prevailing  wind  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  during 
the  late  spring  and  early  summer  season,  and  the 
north-west  wind  would  be  the  most  favourable  wind  for 
an  ancient  trader  almost  entirely  depending  on  an 
immense  main  sail  for  its  motive  power.  With  such 
a  wind  the  merchantmen  of  that  age  could  travel  at  the 
rate  of  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  a  day, 
and  would  therefore  traverse  the  distance  between 
Patara  and  Tyre  in  three  days,  the  time  we  have 
specified.  When  the  vessel  arrived  at  Tyre  St.  Paul 
sought  out  the  local  Christian  congregation.  The  ship 
was  chartered  to  bring  a  cargo  probably  of  wheat  or 
wine  to  Tyre,  inasmuch  as  Tyre  was  a  purely  com- 
mercial city,  and  the  territory  naturally  belonging  to 
it  was  utterly  unable  to  furnish  it  with  necessary  pro- 
visions, as  we  have  already  noted  on  the  occasion  of 
Herod  Agrippa's  death.  A  week,  therefore,  was  spent 
in  unloading  the  cargo,  during  which  St.  Paul  devoted 
himself  to  the  instruction  of  the  local  Christian  Church. 
After  a  week's  close  communion  with  this  eminent 
servant  of  God,  the  Tyrian  Christians,  like  the  elders 
of  Ephesus  and  Miletus,  with  their  wives  and  children 
accompanied  him  till  they  reached  the  shore,  where  they 
commended  one  another  in  prayer  to  God's  care  and 
blessing.  From  Tyre  he  sailed  to  Ptolemais,  thirty 
miles  distant.  There  again  he  found  another  Christian 
congregation,  with  whom  he  tarried  one  day,  and  then 
leaving  the  ship  proceeded  by  the  great  coast  road  to 
Caesarea,  a  town  which  he  already  knew  right  well,  and 
to  which  he  was  so  soon  to  return  as  a  prisoner  in 
bonds.     At  Csesarea  there  must  now  have  been  a  very 


426  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

considerable  Christian  congregation.  In  Caesarea  Philip 
the  Evangelist  lived  and  ministered  permanently. 
There  too  resided  his  daughters,  eminent  as  teachers, 
and  exercising  in  their  preaching  or  prophetical 
functions  a  great  influence  among  the  very  mixed 
female  population  of  the  political  capital  of  Palestine. 
St.  Paul  and  St.  Luke  abode  in  Caesarea  several  days 
in  the  house  of  Philip  the  Evangelist.  He  did  not  wish 
to  arrive  in  Jerusalem  till  close  on  the  Feast  of  Pente- 
cost, and  owing  to  the  fair  winds  with  which  he  had 
been  favoured  he  must  have  had  a  week  or  more  to 
stay  in  Caesarea.  Here  Agabus  again  appears  upon  the 
scene.  Fourteen  years  before  he  had  predicted  the 
famine  which  led  St.  Paul  to  pay  a  visit  to  Jerusalem 
when  bringing  up  the  alms  of  the  Antiochene  Church 
to  assist  the  poor  brethren  at  Jerusalem,  and  now 
he  predicts  the  Apostle's  approaching  captivity.  The 
prospect  moved  the  Church  so  much  that  the  brethren 
besought  St.  Paul  to  change  his  mind  and  not  enter 
the  Holy  City,  But  his  mind  was  made  up,  and  nothing 
would  dissuade  him  from  celebrating  the  Feast  as  he 
had  all  along  proposed.  He  went  up  therefore  to 
Jerusalem,  lodging  with  Mnason,  "an  early  disciple," 
as  the  Revised  Version  puts  it,  one  therefore  who 
traced  his  Christian  convictions  back  probably  to  the 
celebrated  Pentecost  a  quarter  of  a  century  earlier, 
when  the  Holy  Ghost  first  displayed  His  supernatural 
power  in  converting  multitudes  of  human  souls.  Next 
day  he  went  to  visit  James,  the  Bishop  of  Jerusalem, 
who  received  him  warmly,  grasped  his  position,  warned 
him  of  the  rumours  which  had  been  industriously  and 
falsely  circulated  as  to  his  opposition  to  the  Law  of 
Moses,  even  in  the  case  of  born  Jews,  and  gave  him 
some    prudent    advice    as    to    his   course   of    action. 


xxi.  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  427 

St,  James  recommended  that  St.  Paul  should  unite 
himself  with  certain  Christian  Nazarites,  and  perform 
the  Jewish  rites  usual  in  such  cases.  A  Nazarite,  as 
we  have  already  mentioned,  when  he  took  the  Nazarite 
vow  for  a  limited  time  after  some  special  deliverance 
vouchsafed  to  him,  allowed  his  hair  to  grow  till  he 
could  cut  it  off  in  the  Temple,  and  have  it  burned  in 
the  fire  of  the  sacrifices  offered  up  on  his  behalf. 
These  sacrifices  were  very  expensive,  as  will  be  seen 
at  once  by  a  reference  to  Numbers  vi.  13-18,  where 
they  are  prescribed  at  full  length,  and  it  was  always 
regarded  as  a  mark  of  patriotic  piety  when  any  stranger 
coming  to  Jerusalem  offered  to  defray  the  necessary 
charges  for  the  poorer  Jews,  and  thus  completed  the 
ceremonies  connected  with  the  Nazarite  vow.  St.  James 
advised  St.  Paul  to  adopt  this  course,  to  unite  himself 
with  the  members  of  the  local  Christian  Church  who 
were  unable  to  defra}^  the  customary  expenses,  to  pay 
their  charges,  join  with  them  in  the  sacrifices,  and  thus 
publicly  proclaim  to  those  who  opposed  him  that, 
though  he  differed  from  them  as  regards  the  Gentiles, 
holding  in  that  matter  with  St.  James  himself  and  with 
the  apostles,  yet  as  regards  the  Jews,  whether  at 
Jerusalem  or  throughout  the  world  at  large,  he  was 
totally  misrepresented  when  men  asserted  that  he 
taught  the  Jews  to  reject  the  Law  of  Moses.  St.  Paul 
was  guided  by  the  advice  of  James,  and  proceeded  to 
complete  the  ceremonial  prescribed  for  the  Nazarites. 
This  was  the  turning-point  of  his  fate.  Jerusalem  was 
then  thronged  with  strangers  from  every  part  of  the 
world.  Ephesus  and  the  province  of  Asia,  as  a  great 
commercial  centre,  and  therefore  a  great  Jewish  resort, 
furnished  a  very  large  contingent.^  To  these,  then, 
'  See  Lightfoot's  Ignatius,  vol.  i.,  p.  452,  upon  the  presence  of  Jews 


428  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Paul  was  well  known  as  an  enthusiastic  Christian 
teacher,  toward  whom  the  synagogues  of  Ephesus  felt 
the  bitterest  hostility.  They  had  often  plotted  against 
him  at  Ephesus,  as  St.  Paul  himself  told  the  elders  in 
his  address  at  Miletus,  but  had  hitherto  failed  to  effect 
their  purpose.  Now,  however,  they  seemed  to  see  their 
chance.  They  thought  they  had  a  popular  cry  and 
a  legal  accusation  under  which  he  might  be  done  to 
death  under  the  forms  of  law.  These  Ephesian  Jews 
had  seen  him  in  the  city  in  company  with  Trophimus, 
an  uncircumcised  Christian,  belonging  to  their  own 
city,  one  therefore  whose  presence  within  the  temple 
was  a  capital  offence,  even  according  to  Roman  law.^ 
They  raised  a  cry  therefore  that  he  had  defiled  the 
Holy  Place  by  bringing  into  it  an  uncircumcised  Greek ; 
and  thus  roused  the  populace  to  seize  the  Apostle, 
drag  him  from  the  sacred  precincts,  and  murder  him. 
During  the  celebration  of  the  Feasts  the  Roman 
sentinels,  stationed  upon  the  neighbouring  tower  of 
Antonia  which  overlooked  the  Temple  courts,  watched 
the  assembled  crowds  most  narrowly,  apprehensive  of 

in  the  towns  and  cities  of  Proconsular  Asia.  Antiochus  the  Great 
transported  two  thousand  Jewish  families  to  these  parts  from  Babylonia 
and  Mesopotamia. 

'  Inscriptions,  according  to  Josephus,  were  graven  in  Greek  and 
Latin  on  stones  fixed  in  a  wall  or  balustrade  which  ran  round  the 
Temple,  warning  the  Gentiles  not  to  enter  on  pain  of  death  :  see 
Josephus,  IVars,  V.  v.  2;  Antiqq.,  XV.  xi.  5.  One  of  these. stones  was 
discovered  some  twenty  years  ago  by  M.  Clermont  Ganneau,  with  the 
inscription  intact.  It  had  been  buried  in  the  ground  on  the  Via 
Dolorosa  in  Jerusalem,  where  this  learned  Frenchman  discovered  it. 
A  transcript  of  it  can  now  be  seen  in  Lewin's  St.  Paul,  ii.  133.  The 
inscription  literally  translated  runs  thus  :  "  No  alien  to  pass  within  the 
balustrade  round  the  Temple  and  the  inclosure,  Whosoever  shall  be 
caught  (so  doing)  must  blame  himself  for  the  death  that  will  ensue." 
This  stone  must  often  have  been  read  by  our  Lord  and  His  apostles, 
as  they  frequented  the  temple. 


xxi.,  xxii.,xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  '  429 

a  riot.  As  soon  therefore  as  the  first  symptoms  of  an 
outbreak  occurred,  the  alarm  was  given,  the  chief 
captain  Lysias  hurried  to  the  spot,  and  St.  Paul  was 
rescued  for  the  moment.  At  the  request  of  the  Apostle, 
who  was  being  carried  up  into  the  castle,  he  was  allowed 
to  address  the  multitude  from  the  stairs.  They  listened 
to  the  narrative  of  his  conversion  very  quietly  till  he 
came  to  tell  of  the  vision  God  vouchsafed  to  him  in 
the  Temple  some  twenty  years  before,  warning  him  to 
leave  Jerusalem,  when  at  the  words  "  Depart,  for  I  will 
send  thee  forth  far  hence  unto  the  Gentiles,"  all  their 
pent-up  rage  and  pride  and  national  jealousy  burst  forth 
anew.  St.  Paul  had  been  addressing  them  in  the 
Hebrew  language  which  the  chief  captain  understood 
not,  and  the  mob  probably  expressed  their  rage  and 
passion  in  the  same  language.  The  chief  captain 
ordered  St.  Paul  to  be  examined  by  flogging  to  know 
why  they  were  so  outrageous  against  him.  More  for- 
tunate, however,  on  this  occasion  than  at  Philippi,  he 
claimed  his  privilege  as  a  Roman  citizen,  and  escaped 
the  torture.  The  chief  captain  was  still  in  ignorance 
of  the  prisoner's  crime,  and  therefore  he  brought  him 
the  very  next  day  before  the  Sanhedrin,  when  St.  Paul 
b}'  a  happy  stroke  caused  such  a  division  between  the 
Sadducees  and  Pharisees  that  the  chief  captain  was 
again  obliged  to  intervene  and  rescue  the  prisoner  from 
the  contending  factions.  Next  day,  however,  the  Jews, 
formed  a  conspiracy  to  murder  the  Apostle,  which  his 
nephew  discovered  and  revealed  to  St.  Paul  and  to 
Claudius  Lysias,  who  that  same  night  despatched  him 
to  Caesarea.^ 

All  these   events,  from    his   conference  with  James 

'  It  is  very  curious  how  perpetually  St.  Paul  escaped  the  plots  of  the 


430  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  his  arrival  under  guard  at  Caesarea,  cannot  have 
covered  more  than  eight  days  at  the  utmost,  and  yet 
the  story  of  them  extends  from  the  middle  of  the 
twenty-first  chapter  to  the  close  of  the  twenty-third, 
while  the  record  of  twelve  months'  hard  work  preach- 
ing, writing,  organising  is  embraced  within  the  first 
six  verses  of  the  twentieth  chapter,  showing  how  very 
different  was  St.  Luke's  narrative  of  affairs,  according 
as  he  was  present  or  absent  when  they  were  trans- 
acted.^ 
^  From  the  beginning  of  the  twenty- fourth  chapter  to 
the  close  of  the  twenty-sixth  is  taken  up  with  the 
account  of  St.  Paul's  trials,  at  first  before  Felix,  and 
then  before  Festus,  his  successor  in  the  procuratorship 
of  Palestine.  Just  let  us  summarise  the  course  of 
events  and  distinguish  between  them.  St.  Paul  was 
despatched  by  Claudius  Lysias  to  Felix  accompanied 
by  a  letter  in  which  he  contrives  to  put  the  best  con- 
struction on  his  own  actions,  representing  himself  as 
specially  anxious  about  St.  Paul  because  he  was  a 
Roman  citizen,  on  which  account  indeed  he  desci'ibes 
himself  as  rescuing  him  from  the  clutches  of  the  mob. 
After  the  lapse  of  five  days  St.  Paul  was  brought  up 
before  Felix  and  accused  by  the  Jews  of  three  serious 
crimes  in  the  eyes  of  Roman  law  as  administered  in 
Palestine.  First,  he  was  a  mover  of  seditions  among 
the   Jews ;  ^  second,  a  ringleader  of  a  new  sect,   the 

Jews  at  Corinth,  Ephesus,  and  elsewhere.  At  Corinth  the  plot' formed 
was  revealed  as  it  would  seem  just  as  he  was  about  to  go  on  board 
his  vessel  (ch.  xx.  3).  Doubtless  there  were  concealed  Christians  to 
whose  ears  the  plots  came  and  by  whom  they  were  revealed. 

'  See  Lewin's  Fasti  Sacri,  pp.  314-16,  for  an  elaborate  account  of 
each  day's  proceedings,  and  a  discussion  of  the  various  problems, 
chronological  and  otherwise,  which  they  raise. 

*  The  Romans  were  always  afraid  of  Jewish  seditions.     Seven  years 


xxi.,xxii.,xxiv.,xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  43 1 

Nazarenes,  unknown  to  Jewish  law ;  and  third,  a 
profaner  of  the  Temple,  contrary  to  the  law  which 
the  Romans  themselves  had  sanctioned.  On  all  these 
points  Paul  challenged  investigation  and  demanded 
proof,  asking  where  were  the  Jews  from  Asia  who  had 
accused  him  of  profaning  the  Temple.  The  Jews 
doubtless  thought  that  Paul  was  a  common  Jew,  who 
would  be  yielded  up  to  their  clamour  by  the  procurator, 
and  knew  nothing  of  his  Roman  citizenship.  Their 
want  of  witnesses  brought  about  their  failure,  but  did 
not  lead  to  St.  Paul's  release.  He  was  committed  to 
the  custody  of  a  centurion,  and  freedom  of  access  was 
granted  to  his  friends.  In  this  state  St.  Paul  continued 
two  full  years,  from  midsummer  58  to  the  same  period 
of  A.D.  60,  when  Felix  was  superseded  by  Festus. 
During  these  two  years  Felix  often  conversed  with  St. 
Paul.  Felix  was  a  thoroughly  bad  man.  He  exercised, 
as  a  historian  of  that  time  said  of  him,  "  the  power  of 
a  king  with  the  mind  of  a  slave."  He  was  tyrannical, 
licentious,  and  corrupt,  and  hoped  to  be  bribed  by  St. 
Paul  when  he  would  have  set  him  at  liberty.  At  this 
period  of  his  life  St.  Paul  twice  came  in  contact  with  the 
Herodian  house  which  thenceforth  disappears  from 
sacred  history.  Felix  about  the  period  of  St.  Paul's 
arrest    enticed    Drusilla,    the    great-granddaughter    of 


before  St.  Paul's  imprisonment  there  had  been  a  terrible  outburst,  in 
which  Ananias  the  high  priest  had  been  himself  involved,  and  v^^hich 
led  to  the  despatch  of  Felix  himself  as  procurator.  He  had  effectually 
put  down  all  disturba,nces,  which  led  to  the  prolongation  of  his  rule  in 
Palestine  for  the  very  unusual  period  of  eight  years,  from  52  to  60  A.D. 
This  accounts  for  the  words  of  TertuUus  (ch.  xxiv.  2)  :  "  Seeing  that 
by  thee  we  enjoy  much  peace,  and  that  by  thy  providence  evils  are 
corrected  for  this , nation."  See  Lewin's  Fasti,  pp.  296-98,  315,  320; 
Conybeare  and  Howson,  ch.  xxii.  ;  and  for  the  latest  authority,  Schiirer's 
Geschichte  des  JiidiscJun  Volkes,  i.  477-83,  ii.  170  (Leipzig,  1886). 


432  THE  ACTS   OF   THE  APOSTLES. 

Herod  the  Great,  from  her  husband  through  the  medium 
as  many  think,  of  Simon  Magus.  Drusilla  was  very 
young  and  very  beautiful,  and,  like  all  the  Herodian 
women,  very  wicked.-^  Felix  was  an  open  adulterer, 
therefore,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  when  Paul  reasoned 
before  the  guilty  pair  concerning  righteousness, 
temperance,  and  the  judgment  to  come,  conscience 
should  have  smitten  them  and  Felix  should  have 
trembled.  St.  Paul  had  another  opportunity  of  bearing 
witness  before  this  wicked  and  bloodstained  family. 
Festus  succeeded  Felix  as  procurator  of  Palestine  about 
June  A.D.  60.  Within  the  following  month  Agrippa  II., 
the  son  of  the  Herod  Agrippa  who  had  died  the 
terrible  death  at  Caesarea  of  which  the  twelfth  chapter 
tells,  came  to  Caesarea  to  pay  his  respects  unto  the 
new  governor.  Agrippa  was  ruler  of  the  kingdom  of 
Chalcis,  a  district  north  of  Palestine  and  about  the 
Lebanon  Range.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  sister 
Bernice,  who  afterwards  became  the  mistress  of  Titus, 
the  conqueror  of  Jerusalem  in  the  last  great  siege. 
Festus  had  already  heard  St.  Paul's  case,  and  had 
allowed  his  appeal  unto  Caesar.  He  wished,  however, 
to  have  his  case  investigated  before  two  Jewish  experts, 
Agrippa  and  Bernice,  who  could  instruct  his  own 
ignorance  on  the  charges  laid  against  him  by  the  Jews, 
enabling  him  to  write  a  more  satisfactory  report  for  the 
Emperor's  guidance.  He  brought  St.  Paul  therefore 
before  them,  and  gave  the  great  Christian  champion 
another  opportunity  of  bearing  witness  for  his  Master 
before  a  family  which  now  for  more  than  sixty  years 
had  been  more  or  less  mixed  up,  but  never  for  their 
own  blessing,  with  Christian  history.     After  a  period 

'  Drusilla  perished  with  her  child  by  this  union  with  Felix  in  the 
famous  eruption  of  Vesuvius  A.D.  79. 


xxi.,  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  433 

of  two  years  and  three  months'  detention,  varied  by 
different  public  appearances,  St.  Paul  was  despatched 
to  Rome  to  stand  his  trial  and  make  his  defence  before 
the  Emperor  Nero,  whose  name  has  become  a  synonj'm 
for  vice,  brutality,  and  self-will. 

II.  We  have  now  given  a  connected  outline  of  St. 
Paul's  histor}'  extending  over  a  period  of  more  than 
two  years.  Let  us  omit  his  formal  defences,  which 
have  already  come  under  our  notice,  and  take  for  our 
meditation  a  number  of  points  which  are  pecuhar  to 
the  narrative. 

We  have  in  the  story  of  the  voyage,  arrest,  and 
imprisonment  of  St.  Paul,  many  circumstances  which 
illustrate  God's  methods  of  action  in  the  world,  or  else 
His  deahngs  with  the  spiritual  life.  Let  us  take  a  few 
instances.  First,  then,  we  direct  attention  to  the  steady 
though  quiet  progress  of  the  Christian  faith  as  revealed 
in  these  chapters.  St.  Paul  landed  at  Tyre,  and  from 
Tyre  he  proceeded  some  thirty  miles  south  to  Ptolemais, 
These  are  both  of  them  towns  which  have  never 
hitherto  occurred  in  our  narrative  as  places  of  Christian 
activity.  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter  and  Barnabas  and 
the  other  active  leaders  of  the  Church  must  often  have 
passed  through  these  towns,  and  wherever  they  went 
they  strove  to  make  known  the  tidings  of  the  gospel. 
Biit  we  hear  nothing  in  the  Acts,  and  tradition  tells  us 
nothing  of  when  or  by  whom  the  Christian  Church 
was  founded  in  these  localities.^ 

We  get  glimpses,  too,  of  the  ancient  organisation  of 
the  Church,  but  only  glimpses  ;  we  have  no  complete 
statement,  because  St.  Luke  was  writing  for  a  man  who 
lived  amidst  it,  and  could  supply  the  gaps  which  his  in- 

'  See  my  remarks  in  the  next  chapter  on  the  case  of  the  church  at 
PuteoH,  which  St.  Paul  found  flourishing  there  on  his  voyage  to  Rome. 
VOL.  II.  28 


434  THt:  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

formant  left.  The  presbyters  are  mentioned  at  Miletus, 
and  Agabus  the  prophet  appeared  at  Antioch  years 
before,  and  now  again  he  appears  at  Caesarea,  where 
Philip  the  Evangelist  and  his  daughters  the  prophetesses 
appear.  Prophets  and  prophesying  are  not  confined  to 
Palestine  and  Antioch,  though  the  Acts  tells  us  nothing 
of  them  as  existing  elsewhere.  The  Epistle  to  Corinth 
shows  us  that  the  prophets  occupied  a  very  important 
place  in  that  Christian  community.  Prophesying  indeed 
was  principally  preaching  at  Corinth ;  but  it  did  not 
exclude  prediction,  and  that  after  the  ancient  Jewish 
method,  by  action  as  well  as  by  word,  for  Agabus 
took  St.  Paul's  girdle,  and  binding  his  own  hands  and 
feet  declared  that  the  Holy  Ghost  told  him,  "So  shall 
the  Jews  at  Jerusalem  bind  the  man  that  owneth  this 
girdle,  and  deliver  him  into  the  hands  of  the  Gentiles."  ^ 
But  how  little  we  know  of  the  details  of  the  upgrowth 
of  the  Church  in  all  save  the  more  prominent  places  ! 
How  entirely  ignorant  we  are,  for  instance,  of  the 
methods  by  which  the  gospel  spread  to  Tyre  and 
Ptolemais  and  Puteoli !  Here  we  find  in  the  Acts  the 
fulfilment  of  our  Lord's  words  as  reported  in  St. 
Mark  iv.  26 :  "  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  if  a 
man  should  cast  seed  upon  the  earth;  .  .  .  and  the 
seed  should  spring  up  and  grow,  he  knoweth  not  how." 
It  was  with  the  last  and  grander  temple  of  God  as 
it  was  with  the  first.  Its  foundations  were  laid,  and 
its  walls  were  built,  not  with  sound  of  axe  and  hammer, 

'  This  prophecy  was  not  literally  fulfilled.  The  Jews  did  not  bind 
St.  Paul,  nor  deliver  him  into  Gentile  hands.  The  Romans  took  him 
out  of  Jewish  hands,  and  bound  him  for  their  own  purposes.  The 
Jews,  however,  brought  this  binding  about,  and  were  the  cause  of  his 
captivity  in  Roman  hands.  On  the  question  of  prophets  and  prophesy- 
ing in  the  primitive  Church,  see  Dr.  Salmon's  article  on  Hermas,  in 
the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography^  vol.  ii.,  pp.  916-19. 


xxi.,  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  435 


but  in  the  penitence  of  humbled  souls,  in  the  godly 
testimony  of  sanctified  spirits,  in  the  earnest  lives  of 
holy  men  hidden  from  the  scoffing  world,  known  only 
to  the  Almighty. 

Again,  we  notice  the  advice  given  by  James  and  the 
course  actually  adopted  by  St.  Paul  when  he  arrived  at 
Jerusalem.  It  has  the  appearance  of  compromise  of 
truth,  and  yet  it  has  the  appearance  merely,  not  the 
reality  of  compromise.  It  was  in  effect  wise  and  sound 
advice,  and  such  as  teaches  lessons  useful  for  our  own 
guidance  in  life.  We  have  already  Set  forth  St.  Paul's 
conception  of  Jewish  rites  and  ceremonies.  They  were 
nothing  in  the  world  one  way  or  another,  as  viewed  from 
the  Divine  standpoint.  Their  presence  did  not  help  on 
the  work  of  man's  salvation;  their  absence  did  not 
detract  from  it.  The  Apostle  therefore  took  part  in 
them  freely  enough,  as  when  he  celebrated  the  passover 
and  the  days  of  unleavened  bread  at  Philippi,  viewing 
them  as  mere  national  rites.^  He  had  been  successful 
in  the.  very  highest  degree  in  converting  to  this  view 
even  the  highest  and  strictest  members  of  the  Jerusalem 
Church.  St.  James,  in  advising  St.  Paul  how  to  act 
on  this  occasion,  when  such  prejudices  had  been 
excited  against  him,  clearly  shows  that  he  had  come 
round  to  St.  Paul's  view.  He  tells  St.  Paul  that  the 
multitude  or  body  of  the  Judseo-Christian  Church  at 
Jerusalem  had  been  excited  against  him,  because  they 


'  St.  Paul,  writing  twelve  months  earlier  than  his  arrest,  expressly 
lays  down  this  principle  in  I  Corinthians  vii.  18-20  :  "  Was  any  man 
called  being  circumcised  ?  let  him  not  become  uncircumcised.  Hath 
any  been  called  in  uncircumcision  ?  let  him  not  be  circumcised.  Cir- 
cumcision is  nothing,  and  uncircumcision  is  nothing ;  but  the  keeping 
of  the  commandments  of  God.  Let  each  man  abide  in  that  calling 
wherein  he  was  called." 


436  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

had  been  informed  that  he  taught  the  Jews  of  the 
Dispersion  to  forsake  Moses,  the  very  thing  St.  Paul 
did  not  do.  St.  James  grasped,  however,  St.  Paul's 
view  that  Moses  and  the  Levitical  Law  might  be 
good  things  for  the  Jews,  but  had  no  relation  to  the 
Gentiles,  and  must  not  be  imposed  on  them.  St. 
James  had  taught  this  view  ten  years  earlier  at  the 
Apostolic  Council.  His  opinions  and  teaching  had 
percolated  downwards,  and  the  majority  of  the  Jeru- 
salem Church  now  held  the  same  view  as  regards 
the  Gentiles,  but  were  as  strong  as  ever  and  as 
patriotic  as  ever  so  far  as  the  Jews  were  concerned, 
and  the  obligation  of  the  Jewish  Law  upon  them  and 
their  children.  St.  Paul  had  carried  his  point  as  regards 
Gentile  freedom.  And  now  there  came  a  time  when  he 
had  in  turn  to  show  consideration  and  care  for  Jewish 
prejudices,  and  act  out  his  own  principle  that  circum- 
cision was  nothing  and  uncircumcision  was  nothing. 
Concessions,  in  fact,  were  not  to  be  all  on  one  side,  and 
St.  Paul  had  now  to  make  a  concession.  The  Judaeo- 
Christian  congregations  of  Jerusalem  were  much 
excited,  and  St.  Paul  by  a  certain  course  of  conduct, 
perfectly  innocent  and  harmless,  could  pacify  their  ex- 
cited patriotic  feelings,  and  demonstrate  to  them  that  he 
was  still  a  true,  a  genuine,  and  not  a  renegade  Jew.  It 
was  but  a  little  thing  that  St.  James  advised  and  public 
feeling  demanded.  He  had  but  to  join  himself  to  a 
party  of  Nazarites  and  pay  their  expenses,  and  thus  Paul 
would  place  himself  en  rapport  with  the  Mother  Church 
of  Christendom.  St.  Paul  acted  wisely,  charitably,  and 
in  a  Christlike  spirit  when  he  consented  to  do  as  St. 
James  advised.  St.  Paul  was  always  eminently  prudent. 
There  are  some  religious  men  who  seem  to  think 
that  to  advise  a  wise  or  prudent  course  is  all  the  same 


xxi,,xxii.,xxiv.,xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  437 

as  to  advise  a  wicked  or  unprincipled  course.  They 
seem  to  consider  success  in  any  course  as  a  clear 
evidence  of  sin,  and  failure  as  a  proof  of  honesty  and 
true  principle.  Concession,  however,  is  not  the  same 
as  unworthy  compromise.  It  is  our  duty  in  life  to 
see  and  make  our  course  of  conduct  as  fruitful  and  as 
successful  as  possible.  Concession  on  little  points  has 
a  wondrous  power  in  smoothing  the  path  of  action  and 
gaining  true  success.  Many  an  honest  man  ruins  a 
good  cause  simply  because  he  cannot  distinguish,  as 
St.  Paul  did,  things  necessary  and  essential  from  things  , 
accidental  and  trivial.  Pig-headed  obstinacy,  to  use 
a  very  homely  but  a  very  expressive  phrase,  which 
indeed  is  often  only  disguised  pride,  is  a  great  enemy 
to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  societies  and  churches. 
St.  Paul  displayed  great  boldness  here.  He  was  not 
afraid  of  being  misrepresented,  that  ghost  which 
frightens  so  many  a  popularity  hunter  from  the  course 
which  is  true  and  right.  How  easily  his  fierce  opponents, 
the  men  who  had  gone  to  Corinth  and  Galatia  to  oppose 
him,  might  misrepresent  his  action  in  joining  himself 
to  the  Nazarites  !  They  were  the  extreme  men  of  the 
Jerusalem  Church.  They  were  the  men  for  whom 
the  decisions  of  the  Apostolic  Council  had  no  weight, 
and  who  held  still  as  of  old  that  unless  a  man  be 
circumcised  he  could  not  be  saved.  How  easily,  I 
say,  these  men  could  despatch  their  emissaries,  who 
should  proclaim  that  their  opponent  Paul  had  conceded 
all  their  demands  and  was  himself  observing  the  law 
at  Jerusalem.  St.  Paul  was  not  afraid  of  this  mis- 
representation, but  boldly  took  the  course  which  seemed 
to  him  right  and  true,  and  charitable,  despite  the  mali- 
cious tongues  of  his  adversaries.  The  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  left  us  an  example  which  many  still  require. 


438  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

How  many  a  man  is  kept  from  adopting  a  course  that 
is  charitable  and  tends  to  peace  and  edification,  solely 
because  he  is  afraid  of  what  opponents  may  say,  or 
how  they  may  twist  and  misrepresent  his  action.  St. 
Paul  was  possessed  with  none  of  this  moral  cowardice 
which  specially  flourishes  among  so-called  party-leaders, 
men  who,  instead  of  leading,  are  always  led  and  governed 
by  the  opinions  of  their  followers/  St.  Paul  simply 
determined  in  his  conscience  what  was  right,  and  then 
fearlessly  acted  out  his  determination. 

Some  persons  perhaps  would  argue  that  the  result 
of  his  action  showed  that  he  was  wrong  and  had 
unworthily  compromised  the  cause  of  Christian  freedom. 
They  think  that  had  he  not  consented  to  appear  as  a 
Nazarite  in  the  Temple  no  riot  would  have  occurred, 
his  arrest  would  have  been  avoided,  and  the  course 
of  history  might  have  been  very  different.  But  here 
we  would  join  issue  on  the  spot.  The  results  of  his 
action  vindicated  his  Christian  wisdom.  The  great 
body  of  the  Jerusalem  Church  were  convinced  of  his 
sincerity  and  realised  his  position.     He  maintained  his 


'  We  see  enough  of  this  in  politics.  We  see  it  in  the  Church  as  well. 
Writing  as  one  with  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century's  experience  of  a 
disestablished,  and  therefore  of  a  popularly  governed  Church,  I  have 
seen  a  great  deal  of  this  tendency  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  Prominent 
and  ambitious  men  are  ever  apt  to  fall  into  the  snare  here  noted.  The 
tendency  of  popular  assemblies  is  ever  to  develop  a  class  of  men  who 
will  have  but  little  backbone,  and  will  be  always  ready  to  rectify  their 
convictions  to  suit  their  constituencies.  "  Show  thou  me  the  way  I 
should  walk  in,"  but  in  a  very  different  sense  from  the  Psalmist's,  is 
the  unuttered  prayer  of  their  lives,  addressed  to  the  popular  audiences 
of  whose  opinions  they  are  the  mere  expressions,  not  the  guides.  For 
such  men  this  typical  history  has  many  a  reproof  in  St.  Paul's  brave 
conduct  upon  this  and  every  other  occasion.  He  was  never  afraid  of 
a  little  temporary  misrepresentation,  and  therefore  he  proved  a  real 
guide  to  the  Church  of  his  own  and  of  every  age. 


xxi.,xxii.,xxiv.,xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  439 

influence  over  them,  which  had  been  seriously  imperilled 
previously,  and  thus  helped  on  the  course  of  develop- 
ment which  had  been  going  on.  Ten  years  before 
the  advocates  of  Gentile  freedom  were  but  a  small 
body.  Now  the  vast  majority  of  the  local  church 
at  Jerusalem  held  fast  to  this  idea,  while  still  clinging 
fast  to  the  obligation  laid  upon  the  Jews  to  observe 
the  law.  St.  Paul  did  his  best  to  maintain  his  friend- 
ship and  alliance  with  the  Jerusalem  Church.  To  put 
himself  right  with  them  he  travelled  up  to  Jerusalem, 
when  fresh  fields  and  splendid  prospects  were  opening 
up  for  him  in  the  West.  For  this  purpose  he  submitted 
to  several  days  restraint  and  attendance  in  the  Temple, 
and  the  results  vindicated  his  determination.  The 
Jerusalem  Church  continued  the  same  course  of 
orderly  development,  and  when,  ten  years  later,  Jeru- 
salem was  threatened  with  destruction,  the  Christian 
congregations  alone  rose  above  the  narrow  bigoted 
patriotism  which  bound  the  Jews  to  the  Holy  City. 
The  Christians  alone  reaHsed  that  the  day  of  the 
Mosaic  Law  was  at  length  passed,  and,  retiring  to  the 
neighbouring  city  of  Pella,  escaped  the  destruction 
which  awaited  the  fanatical  adherents  of  the  Law  and 
the  Temple.^ 

Another  answer,  too,  may  be  made  to  this  objection. 
It  was  not  his  action  in  the  matter  of  the  Nazarites 
that  brought  about  the  riot  and  the  arrest  and  his 
consequent  imprisonment.  It  was  the  hostility  of  the 
Jews  of  Asia ;  and  they  would  have  assailed  him  when- 
ever and  wherever  they  met  him.  Studying  the  matter 
too  even  in  view  of  results,  we  should  draw  the  opposite 
conclusion.   God  Himself  approved  his  course.   A  Divine 

'  See  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iii.  5,  and  the  notes  of  Valesius  on  that 
passage. 


440  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

vision  was  vouchsafed  to  him  in  the  guard-room  of 
Antonia,  after  he  had  twice  experienced  Jewish  violence, 
and  bestowed  upon  him  the  approbation  of  Heaven  : 
"  The  night  following  the  Lord  stood  by  him,  and  said, 
Be  of  good  cheer  ;  for  as  thou  hast  testified  concerning 
Me  at  Jerusalem,  so  must  thou  bear  witness  also  at 
Rome."  His  courageous  and  at  the  same  time  charitable 
action  was  vindicated  by  its  results  on  the  Jerusalem 
Church,  by  the  sanction  of  Christ  Himself,  and  lastly, 
by  its  blessed  results  upon  the  development  of  the 
Church  at  large  in  leading  St.  Paul  to  Rome,  in  giving 
him  a  wider  and  more  influential  sphere  for  his  efforts, 
and  in  affording  him  leisure  to  write  epistles  like  those 
to  Ephesus,  Philippi,  and  Colossse,  which  have  been  so 
instructive  and  useful  for  the  Church  of  all  ages. 

Another  point  which  has  exercised  men's  minds  is 
found  in  St.  Paul's  attitude  and  words  when  brought 
before  the  Sanhedrin  on  the  day  after  his  arrest.  The 
story  is  told  in  the  opening  verses  of  the  twenty-third 
chapter.  Let  us  quote  them,  as  they  vividly  present 
the  difficulty  :  "  And  Paul,  looking  stedfastly  on  the 
council,  said,  Brethren,  I  have  lived  before  God  in  all 
good  conscience  until  this  day.  And  the  high  priest 
Ananias  commanded  them  that  stood  by  him  to  smite 
him  on  the  mouth.  Then  said  Paul  unto  him,  God 
shall  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall :  and  sittest  thou  to 
judge  me  according  to  the  law,  and  commandest  me  to 
be  smitten  contrary  to  the  law  ?  And  they  that  stood 
by  said,  Revilest  thou  God's  high  priest  ?  And  Paul 
said,  I  wist  not,  brethren,  that  he  was  high  priest :  for 
it  is  written.  Thou  shalt  not  speak  evil  of  a  ruler  of  thy 
people." 

Two  difficulties  here  present  themselves,  (a)  There 
is  St.  Paul's  language,  which  certainly  seems  wanting 


xxi.,  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]   A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  441 

in  Christian  meekness,  and  not  exactly  modelled  after 
the  example  of  Christ,  who,  when  He  was  reviled, 
reviled  not  again,  and  laid  down  in  His  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  a  law  of  suffering  to  which  St.  Paul  does  not 
here  conform.  But  this  is  only  a  difficulty  for  those 
who  have  formed  a  superhuman  estimate  of  St.  Paul 
against  which  we  have  several  times  protested,  and 
against  which  this  very  book  of  the  Acts  seems  to  take 
special  care  to  warn  its  readers.  If  people  will  make 
the  Apostle  as  sinless  and  as  perfect  as  our  Lord,  they 
will  of  course  be  surprised  at  his  language  on  this 
occasion.  But  if  they  regard  him  in  the  light  in  which 
St.  Luke  portrays  him,  as  a  man  of  like  passions  and 
infirmities  with  themselves,  then  they  will  feel  no  diffi- 
culty in  the  fact  that  St.  Paul's  natural  temper  was  roused 
at  the  brutal  and  illegal  command  to  smite  a  helpless 
prisoner  on  the  mouth  because  he  had  made  a  state- 
ment which  a  member  of  the  court  did  not  relish. 
This  passage  seems  to  me  not  a  difficulty,  but  a  divinely 
guided  passage  witnessing  to  the  inspiring  influence  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  inserted  to  chasten  our  wandering 
fancy  which  would  exalt  the  Apostle  to  a  position  equal 
to  that  which  rightly  belongs  to  his  Divine  Master 
alone. 

(6)  Then  there  is  a  second  difficulty.  Some  have 
thought  that  St.  Paul  told  a  lie  in  this  passage,  and  that, 
when  defending  himself  from  the  charge  of  unscrip- 
tural  insolence  to  the  high  priest,  he  merely  pretended 
ignorance  of  his  person,  saying,  "  I  wist  not,  brethren, 
that  he  was  high  priest."  The  older  commentators 
devised  various  explanations  of  this  passage.  Dr.  John 
Lightfoot,  in  his  Hora^  Hebraiccc,  treating  of  this  verse, 
sums  them  all  up  as  follows.  Either  St.  Paul  means 
that   he    did    not    recognise    Ananias   as   high  priest 


442  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

because  he  did  not  lawfully  occupy  the  office,  or  else 
because  that  Christ  was  now  the  only  high  priest;  or 
else  because  there  had  been  so  many  and  so  frequent 
changes  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  not  know  who 
was  the  actual  high  priest.  None  of  these  is  a  satis- 
factory explanation.  Mr.  Lewin  offers  what  strikes 
me  as  the  most  natural  explanation,  considering  all  the 
circumstances.  Ananias  was  appointed  high  priest 
about  47,  continued  in  office  till  59,  and  was  killed  in 
the  beginning  of  the  great  Jewish  war.  He  was  a 
thoroughly  historical  character,  and  his  high  priest- 
hood is  guaranteed  for  us  by  the  testimony  of  Josephus, 
who  tells  us  of  his  varied  fortunes  and  of  his  tragic 
death.  But  St.  Paul  never  probably  once  saw  him, 
as  he  was  absent  from  Jerusalem,  except  for  one  brief 
visit  all  the  time  while  he  enjoyed  supreme  office. 

Now  the  Sanhedrin  consisted  of  seventy-one  judges, 
they  sat  in  a  large  hall  with  a  crowd  of  scribes  and 
pupils  in  front  of  them,  and  the  high  priest,  as  we 
have  already  pointed  out  (vol.  i.,  p.  1 81),  was  not 
necessarily  president  or  chairman.  St.  Paul  was  very 
short-sighted,  and  the  ophthalmia  under  which  he  con- 
tinually suffered  was  probably  much  intensified  by  the 
violent  treatment  he  had  experienced  the  day  before. 
Could  anything  be  more  natural  than  that  a  short- 
sighted man  should  not  recognise  in  such  a  crowd  the 
particular  person  who  had  uttered  this  very  brief,  but 
very  tyrannical  command,  "  Smite  him  on  the  mouth  "  ? 
Surely  an  impartial  review  of  St.  Paul's  life  shows  him 
ever  to  have  been  at  least  a  man  of  striking  courage, 
and  therefore  one  who  would  never  have  descended  to 
cloke  his  own  hasty  words  with  even  the  shadow  of  an 
untruth  !  ^ 

*  There  is  no  necessity  to  adopt  forced  and  unnatural  explanations 


xxi.,xxii.,xxiv.,xxvi.]   A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  443 

Again,  the  readiness  and  quickness  of  St.  Paul  in 
seizing  upon  every  opportunity  of  escape  have  impor- 
tant teaching  for  us.     Upon  four  different  occasions  at 
this   crisis   he   displayed    this    characteristic.     Let   us 
note  them  for  our  guidance.     When  he  was  rescued  by 
the  chief  captain  and  was  carried  into  the  castle,  the 
captain  ordered  him  to  be  examined  by  scourging  to 
elicit  the  true  cause  of  the  riot,  St.  Paul  then  availed 
himself  of  his  privilege  as  a  Roman  citizen  to  escape 
that    torture.      When   he  stood  before  the  council  he 
perceived  the  old  division  between  the  Pharisees  and 
the  Sadducees  to  be  still  in  existence,  which  he  had 
known  long  ago  when  he  was  himself  connected  with 
it.     He  skilfully  availed  himself  of  that  circumstance 
to  raise  dissension  among  his  opponents.     He  grasped 
the  essential  principle  which   lay  at  the    basis  of  his 
teaching,  and  that  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection 
and  the  assertion  of  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  world. 
Without  that  doctrine  Christianity  and  Christian  teach- 
ing  was   utterly    meaningless,    and    in    that    doctrine 
Pharisees  and  Christians  were  united.     Dropping  the 
line  of  defence  he  was  about  to  offer,  which  probably 
would  have  proceeded  to  show  how  true  to  conscience 
and  to  Divine  light  had  been  his  course  of  life,  he  cried 
out,  "  I  am  a  Pharisee,  a  son  of  Pharisees  :  touching  the 
hope  and  resurrection  of  the  dead  I  am  called  in  ques- 
tion."   Grotius,  an  old  and  learned  commentator,  dealing 
with  ch.  xxiii.  6,  has  well  summed  up  the  principles 

when  an  easy  one  lies  ready  to  our  hand,  and  we  all  have  daily  ex- 
perience how  hard  it  is  for  oven  a  keen-sighted  man  to  distinguish 
among  a  crowd  the  person  who  utters  a  brief  exclamation  ;  a  fact  which 
the  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons  often  illustrate.  I  can  myself 
quite  appreciate  St.  Paul's  difficulty.  1  am  extremely  short-sighted, 
and  am  never  able  to  discern — say  in  a  meeting  of  one  of  our  synods — 
who  it  is  that  interrupts  or  contradicts  me. 


444  Tti^  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

on  which  St.  Paul  acted  on  this  occasion  in  the  follow- 
ing  words :    "  St.    Paul   was    not   lacking    in    human 
prudence,  making  use  of  which  for  the  service  of  the 
gospel,  he  intermingled  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  with 
the  gentleness  of  the  dove,  and  thus  utilised  the  dissen- 
sions of  his  enemies."     Yet  once  more  we  see  the  samic 
tact  in  operation.     After  the  meeting  of  the  Sanhedrin 
and  his  rescue  from  out  of  its  very  midst,  a  plot  was 
formed  to  assassinate  him,  of  which  he  was  informed 
by  his  nephew.     Then  again  St.  Paul  did  not  let  things 
slide,  trusting  in  the  Divine  care  alone.     He  knew  right 
well    that   God  demanded  of  men  of  faith  that  they 
should  be  fellow-workers  with  God  and  lend  Him  their 
co-operation.    He  knew  too  the  horror  which  the  Roman 
authorities  had  of  riot  and  of  all  illegal  measures ;  he 
despatched  his  nephew  therefore  to  the  chief  captain, 
and  by  his  readiness  of  resource  saved  himself  from 
imminent  danger.     Lastly,  we  find  the  same  character- 
istic trait  coming  out  at  Caesarea.     His  experience  of 
Roman  rule  taught  him  the  anxiety  of  new  governors 
to  please   the  people  among   whom   they   came.     He 
knew  that    Festus  would   be   anxious  to   gratify   the 
Jewish   authorities    in    any   way   he    possibly   could. 
They  were  very  desirous  to  have  the  Apostle  trans- 
ferred from  Caesarea  to  Jerusalem,  sure  that  in  some 
way   or   another    they    could    there   dispose   of    him. 
Knowing   therefore  the   dangerous  position   in  which 
he  stood,  St.  Paul's  readiness  and  tact  again  came  to 
his  help.     He  knew  Roman  law  thoroughly  well.     He 
knew  that  as  a  Roman  citizen  he  had  one  resource  left 
by  which  in  one  brief  sentence  he  could  transfer  him- 
self out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  Sanhedrin  and  Procurator 
alike,  and  of  this  he  availed  himself  at   the  critical 
moment,  pronouncing  the  magic  words  Ccesarem  Appello 


xxi.,  xxiv.,  XXV.,  xxvi.]   A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  445 

("  I  appeal  unto  Caesar  ").  St  Paul  left  in  all  these  cases 
a  healthy  example  which  the  Church  urgently  required 
in  subsequent  years.  He  had  no  morbid  craving  after 
suffering  or  death.  No  man  ever  lived  in  a  closer 
communion  with  his  God,  or  in  a  more  steadfast  readi- 
ness to  depart  and  be  with  Christ.  But  he  knew  that 
it  was  his  duty  to  remain  at  his  post  till  the  Captain  of 
his  salvation  gave  a  clear  note  of  withdrawal,  and  that 
clear  note  was  only  given  when  every  avenue  of  escape 
was  cut  off.  St.  Paul  therefore  used  his  knowledge  and 
his  tact  in  order  to  ascertain  the  Master's  will  and 
discover  whether  it  was  His  wish  that  His  faithful 
servant  should  depart  or  tarry  yet  awhile  for  the  dis- 
charge of  his  earthly  duties.  I  have  said  that  this  was 
an  example  necessary  for  the  Church  in  subsequent  ages. 
The  question  of  flight  in  persecution  became  a  very 
practical  one  as  soon  as  the  Roman  Empire  assumed 
an  attitude  definitely  hostile  to  the  Church.  The  more 
extreme  and  fanatical  party  not  only  refused  to  take 
any  measures  to  secure  their  safety  or  escape  death,  but 
rather  rushed  headlong  upon  it,  and  upbraided  those  as 
traitors  and  renegades  who  tried  in  any  way  to  avoid 
suffering.^  From  the  earliest  times,  from  the  days  of 
Ignatius  of  Antioch  himself,  we  see  this  morbid  ten- 
dency displaying  itself;  while  the  Church  in  the  person 
of  several  of  its  greatest  leaders — men  like  Polycarp 

'  Any  reader  who  wishes  to  see  how  this  question  was  discussed  about 
the  year  200  A,  D.  should  tuni  to  TertulHan's  treatise  De  Fuga  in  Persecu- 
tione,  c.  6.,  in  his  works  translated  in  Clark's  Ante-Nicene  Library,  vol.  i.*, 
p.  364,  where  TertuIIian  admits  that  the  apostles  fled  in  time  of  persecu- 
tion, but  argues  that  the  permission  to  do  so  was  merely  tempoi-ary  and 
personal  to  the  apostles.  The  study  of  Church  history  is  specially  useful 
in  showing  us  how  exactly  the  same  tendencies  emerge  in  ancient  and 
modern  schisms  and  sects.  TertuIIian  would  have  been  a  Quietist  had 
he  lived  in  the  seventeenth  century  ;  see  note  2,  p.  446. 


44^  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  Cyprian,  who  themselves  retired  from  impending 
danger  till  the  Roman  authorities  discovered  them — 
showed  that  St.  Paul's  wiser  teaching  and  example  were 
not  thrown  away.^  Quietism  was  a  view  which  two 
centuries  ago  made  a  great  stir  both  in  England  and 
France,  and  seems  embodied  to  some  extent  in  certain 
modern  forms  of  thought.  It  taught  that  believers 
should  lie  quite  passive  in  God's  hands  and  make  no 
effort  for  themselves.  Quietism  would  never  have 
found  a  follower  in  the  vigorous  mind  of  St.  Paul,  who 
proved  himself  through  all  those  trials  and  vicissitudes 
of  more  than  two  years  ever  ready  with  some  new 
device  wherewith  to  meet  the  hatred  of  his  foes.^ 

III.  We  notice  lastly  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's 
imprisonment  his  interviews  with  and  his  testimony 
before  the  members  of  the  house  of  Herod.  St.  Peter 
had  experience  of  the  father  of  Herod  Agrippa,  and  now 
St.  Paul  comes  into  contact  with  the  children,  Agrippa, 
Drusilla  and  Bernice.  And  thus  it  came  about.  Felix 
the  procurator,  as  we  have  already  explained,  was  a  very 
bad  man,  and  had  enticed  Drusilla  from  her  husband. 

'  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch  was  very  desirous  of  martyrdom.  St. 
Polycarp  fifty  years  avoided  it  till  he  was  arrested.  St.  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  in  his  Stromata,  iv.  l6,  17,  condemns  the  suicidal  passion  for 
martyrdom.  St.  Cyprian,  enthusiastic  as  he  was,  retired  like  Polycarp 
till  escape  was  impossible.  These  holy  men  all  acted  like  St.  Paul. 
They  waited  till  God  had  intimated  His  will  by  shutting  up  all  way  of 
escape.  The  story  of  Polycarp  has  an  interesting  warning  against 
presumptuous  rushing  upon  trials.  Quintus,  one  of  St.  Polycarp's  flock, 
gave  himself  up  to  death.  His  courage  failed  him  at  the  last,  and  he 
became  an  apostate  :  see  on  this  subject  Lightfoot's  Ignatius  ami  Polycarp, 
vol.  i.,  pp.  38,  393,  603. 

-'  Quietism,  Jansenism,  and  Quakerism  were  all  manifestations  of  the 
same  spirit,  and  arose  about  the  same  time.  Molinos  was  the  founder 
of  Quietism  in  Spain.  A  concise  account  of  the  movement  will  be  found 
in  Schaff's  Theological  Encyclopczdia  in  connexion  with  the  names 
of  Molinos  and  Guyon. 


xxi.,  xxii.,  xxiv.,  xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  447 

He  doubtless  told  her  of  the  Jewish  prisoner  who  lay 
a  captive  in  the  city  where  she  was  living.  The 
Herods  were  a  clever  race,  and  they  knew  all  about 
Jewish  hopes  and  Messianic  expectations,  and  they 
ever  seem  to  have  been  haunted  by  a  certain  curiosity 
concerning  the  new  sect  of  the  Nazarenes.  One  Herod 
desired  for  a  long  time  to  see  Jesus  Christ,  and  was 
delighted  when  Pilate  gratified  his  longing.  Drusilla, 
doubtless,  was  equally  curious,  and  easily  persuaded 
her  husband  to  gratify  her  desire.  We  therefore  read 
in  ch.  xxiv.  24,  "  But  after  certain  days,  Felix  came 
with  Drusilla,  his  wife,  which  was  a  Jewess,  and  sent 
for  Paul,  and  heard  him  concerning  the  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus." 

Neither  of  them  calculated  on  the  kind  of  man  they 
had  to  do  with.  St.  Paul  knew  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  case.  He  adapted  his  speech  thereto.  He  made 
a  powerful  appeal  to  the  conscience  of  the  guilty  pair. 
He  reasoned  of  righteousness,  temperance,  and  the 
judgment  to  come,  and  beneath  his  weighty  words 
Felix  trembled.  His  convictions  were  roused.  He 
experienced  a  transient  season  of  penitence,  such  as 
touched  another  guilty  member  of  the  Herodian  house 
who  feared  John  and  did  many  things  gladly  to  win 
his  approval.  But  habits  of  sin  had  grasped  Felix  too 
firmly.  He  temporised  with  his  conscience.  He  put 
off  the  day  of  salvation  when  it  was  dawning  on  him, 
and  his  words,  "  Go  thy  way  for  this  time,  and  when 
I  have  a  convenient  season  I  will  call  thee  unto  me," 
became  the  typical  language  of  all  those  souls  for  whom 
procrastination,  want  of  decision,  trifling  with  spiritual 
feelings,  have  been  the  omens  and  the  causes  of  eternal 
ruin. 

But  Felix  and  Drusilla  were  not  the  only  members 


448  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  the  Herodian  house  with  whom  Paul  came  in  contact. 
Fehx  and  Drusilla  left  Palestine  when  two  years  of 
St.  Paul's  imprisonment  had  elapsed.  Festus,  another 
procurator,  followed,  and  began  his  course,  as  all  the 
Roman  rulers  of  Palestine  began  theirs.  The  Jews, 
when  Felix  visited  Jerusalem,  besought  him  to  deliver 
the  prisoner  lying  bound  at  Caesarea  to  the  judgment 
of  their  Sanhedrin.  Festus,  all  powerful  as  a  Roman 
governor  usually  was,  dared  not  treat  a  Roman  citizen 
thus  without  his  own  consent,  and  when  that  consent 
was  asked  Paul  at  once  refused,  knowing  right  well  the 
intentions  of  the  Jews,  and  appealed  unto  Caesar.  A 
Roman  governor,  however,  would  not  send  a  prisoner 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Emperor  without  stating  the 
crime  imputed  to  him.  Just  at  that  moment  Herod 
Agrippa,  king  of  €halcis  and  of  the  district  of  Ituraea, 
together  with  his  sister  Bernice,  appeared  on  the  scene. 
He  was  a  Jew,  and  was  well  acquainted  therefore  with 
the  accusations  brought  against  the  Apostle,  and  could 
inform  the  procurator  what  report  he  should  send  to 
the  Emperor.  Festus  therefore  brought  Paul  before 
them,  and  gave  him  another  opportunity  of  expounding 
the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  law  of  love  and  purity 
which  that  faith  involved  to  a  family  who  ever  treated 
that  law  with  profound  contempt.  St.  Paul  availed 
himself  of  that  opportunity.  He  addressed  his  whole 
discourse  to  the  king,  and  that  discourse  was  typical  of 
those  he  addressed  to  Jewish  audiences.  It  was  like 
the  sermon  delivered  to  the  Jews  in  the  synagogue  of 
Antioch  in  Pisidia  in  one  important  aspect.  Both 
discourses  gathered  round  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  their  central  idea.  St.  Paul  began  his 
address  before  Agrippa  with  that  doctrine,  and  he 
ended  with  the   same.     The  hope  of  Israel,  towards 


xxi.,xxii.,xxiv.,xxvi.]    A  PRISONER  IN  BONDS.  449 


which  their  continuous  worship  tended,  was  the  resur- 
rection of  the  dead.  That  was  St.  Paul's  opening  idea. 
The  same  note  lay  beneath  the  narr^4,ive  of  his  own 
conversion,  and  then  he  returned  back  to  his  original 
statement  that  the  Risen  Christ  was  the  hope  of  Israel 
and  of  the  world  taught  by  Moses  and  proclaimed  by 
prophets.  But  it  was  alL  in  vain  as  regards  Agrippa 
and  Bernice.  The  Herods  were  magnificent,  clever, 
beautiful.  But  they  were  of  the  earth,  earthy. 
Agrippa  said  indeed  to  Paul,  "  With  but  little  persua- 
sion thou  wouldest  fain  make  me  a  Christian."  But 
it  was  not  souls  like  his  for  whom  the  gospel  miessage 
was  intended.  The  Herods  knew  nothing  of  the  burden 
of  sin  or  the  keen  longing  of  souls  desirous  of  holiness 
and  of  God.  They  were  satisfied  with  the  present  tran- 
sient scene,  and  enjoyed  it  thoroughly.  Agrippa's 
father  when  he  lay  a-dying  at  Csesarea  consoled  him- 
self with  the  reflection  that  though  his  career  was 
prematurely  cut  short,  yet  at  any  rate  he  had  lived 
a  splendid  life.  And  such  as  the  parent  had  been, 
such  were  the  children.  King  Agrippa  and  his  sister 
Bernice  were  true  types  of  the  stony-ground  hearers, 
with  whom  "the  care  of  the  world  and  the  deceitfulness 
of  riches  choke  the  word."  And  they  choked  the  word 
so  effectually  in  his  case,  even  when  taught  by  St.  Paul, 
that  the  only  result  upon  Agrippa,  as  St.  Luke  reports 
it,  was  this:  "Agrippa  said  unto  Festus,  This  man 
might  have  been  set  at  liberty,  if  he  had  not  appealed 
unto  Caesar." 


Vol.  iii 


CHAPTER-  XVIII. 

IN  PERILS  ON   THE  SEA. 

"  And  when  it  was  determined  that  we  should  sail  for  Italy,  they 
delivered  Paid  and  certain  other  prisoners  to  a  centurion  named  Julius, 
of  the  Augustan  band.  And  embarking  in  a  ship  of  Adramyttium, 
which  was  about  to  sail  unto  the  places  on  the  coast  of  Asia,  we  put  to 
sea,  Aristarchus,  a  Macedonian  of  Thessalonica,  being  with  us.  And 
the  next  day  we  touched  at  Sidon  :  and  Julius  treated  Paul  kindly,  and 
gave  him  leave  to  go  unto  his  friends  and  refresh  himself." — Acts 
xxvii.  1-3. 

"And  when  we  entered  into  Rome,  Paul  was  suffered  to  abide  by 
himself  with  the  soldier  that  guarded  him." — Acts  xxviii.  16. 

THIS  chapter  terminates  our  survey  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  and  leads  us  at  the  same  time 
to  contemplate  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  in  a  new 
light  as  a  traveller  and  as  a  prisoner,  in  both  which 
aspects  he  has  much  to  teach  us.  When  St.  Paul  was 
despatched  to  the  judgment-seat  of  Caesar  from  the 
port  of  Caesarea,  he  had  arrived  at  the  middle  of  his 
long  captivity.  Broadly  speaking  he  was  five  years  a 
prisoner  from  the  day  of  his  arrest  at  Jerusalem  till  his 
release  by  the  decision  of  Nero.  He  was  a  prisoner 
for  more  than  two  years  when  Festus  sent  him  to 
Rome,  and  then  at  Rome  he  spent  two  more  years  in 
captivity,  while  his  voyage  occupied  fully  six  months. 
Let  us  now  first  of  all  look  at  that  captivity,  and  strive 
to  discover  those  purposes  of  good  therein  which  God 
hides  amidst  all  his  dispensations  and  chastisements. 

450 


xxvii.  1-3 ;  xxviii.  i6.]    IN  PERILS  ON  THE  SEA.  451 


We  do  not  always  realise  what  a  length  of  time  was 
consumed  in  the  imprisonments  of  St,  Paul,  He  must 
have  spent  from  the  middle  of  58  to  the  beginning  of 
6^  as  a  prisoner  cut  off  from  many  of  those  various 
activities  in  which  he  had  previously  laboured  so 
profitably  for  God's  cause.  That  must  have  seemed  to 
himself  and  to  many  others  a  terrible  loss  to  the  gospel ; 
and  yet  now,  as  we  look  back  from  our  vantage-point, 
we  can  see  many  reasons  why  the  guidance  of  his 
heavenly  Father  may  have  led  directly  to  this  imprison- 
ment, which  proved  exceedingly  useful  for  himself  and 
his  own  soul's  health,  for  the  past  guidance  and  for  the 
perpetual  edification  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  There  is 
a  text  in  Ephesians  iv,  i  which  throws  some  light  on 
this  incident.  In  that  Epistle,  written  wlien  St.  Paul 
was  a  cagtive  at  Rome,  he  describes  himself  thus,  "  I 
therefore  the  prisoner  in  the  Lord,"  or  "the  prisoner  of 
the  Lord,"  as  the  Authorised  Version  puts  it.  These 
words  occur  as  the  beginning  of  the  Epistle  for  the 
Seventeenth  Sunday  after  Trinity.  Now  there  is  often 
a  marvellous  amount  of  spiritual  wisdom  and  instruction 
to  be  gained  from  a  comparison  between  the  epistles 
and  gospels  and  the  collects  for  each  Sunday.  All  my 
readers  may  not  agree  in  the  whole  theological  system 
which  underlies  the  Prayer  Book,  but  every  one  will 
acknowledge  that  its  services  and  their  construction  are 
the  result  of  rich  and  varied  spiritual  experiences  ex- 
tending over  a  period  of  more  than  a  thousand  years. 
The  mere  contrast  of  an  epistle  and  of  a  collect  will 
often  suggest  thoughts  deep  and  searching.  So  it  is 
with  this  text,  "  I  therefore  the  prisoner  in  the  Lord." 
It  is  preceded  by  the  brief  pithy  prayer,  "  Lord,  we 
pray  Thee  that  Thy  grace  may  always  prevent  and 
follow  us,  and  make  us  continually  to  be  given  to  all 


452  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

good  works,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  The 
words  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Ephesians  speaking  of  himself 
as  the  prisoner  of  God  and  in  God  suggested  immedi- 
ately the  idea  of  God's  grace  surrounding,  shaping, 
constraining  to  His  service  every  external  circumstance  ; 
and  thus  led  to  the  formation  of  the  collect  v/hich  in 
fact  prays  that  we  may  realise  ourselves  as  so  com- 
pletely God's  as,  like  the  Apostle,  continually  to  be 
given  to  all  good  works.  St.  Paul  realised  himself  as 
so  prevented,  using  that  word  in  its  ancient  sense, 
preceded  and  followed  by  God's  grace,  guarded  before 
and  behind  by  it,  that  he  looked  beyond  the  things 
seen,  and  discarding  all  secondary  agents  and  all  lower 
instruments,  he  viewed  his  imprisonment  as  God's  own 
immediate  work. 

I.  Let  us  then  see  in  what  way  we  may  regard  St. 
Paul's  imprisonment  as  an  arrangement  and  outcome 
of  Divine  love.  Take,  for  instance,  St.  Paul  in  his  own 
personal  life.  This  period  of  imprisonment,  of  enforced 
rest  and  retirement,  may  have  been  absolutely  necessary 
for  him.  St.  Paul  had  spent  many  a  long  and  busy  year 
building  up  the  spiritual  life  of  others,  founding  churches, 
teaching  converts,  preaching,  debating,  struggling, 
suffering.  His  life  had  been  one  of  intense  spiritual, 
intellectual,  bodily  activity  on  behalf  of  others.  But 
no  one  can  be  engaged  in  intense  activity  without 
wasting  some  of  the  spiritual  life  and  force  necessary 
for  himself.  Religious  work,  the  most  direct  spiritual 
activity,  visiting  the  sick,  or  preaching  the  gospel,  or 
celebrating  the  sacraments,  make  a  tremendous  call 
upon  our  devotional  powers  and  directly  tend  to  lower 
our  spiritual  vitality,  unless  we  seek  abundant  and 
frequent  renewal  thereof  at  the  source  of  all  spiritual 
vitality  and  life.     Now  God  by  this  long  imprisonment 


xxvii.  l-3;xxviii.  l6.]     IN  PERILS   ON  THE  SEA.  453 

took  St.  Paul  aside  once  again,  as  He  had  taken  him 
aside  twenty  years  before,  amid  the  rocks  of  Sinai. 
God  laid  hold  of  him  in  his  career  of  external  business, 
as  He  laid  hold  of  Moses  in  the  court  of  Pharaoh, 
leading  him  into  the  wilderness  of  Midian  for  forty 
long  years.  God  made  St.  Paul  His  prisoner  that, 
having  laboured  for  others,  and  having  tended  diligently 
their  spiritual  vineyard,  he  might  now  watch  over  and 
tend  his  own  for  a  time.  And  the  wondrous  manner 
in  which  he  profited  by  his  imprisonment  is  manifest 
from  this  very  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  in  which  he 
describes  himself  as  God's  prisoner — not,  be  it  ob- 
served, the  prisoner  of  the  Jews,  or  of  the  Romans, 
or  of  Caesar,  but  as  the  prisoner  of  God — dealing  in 
the  profoundest  manner,  as  that  Epistle  does,  with  the 
greatest  mysteries  of  the  Christian  faith.  St.  Paul  had 
an  opportunity  during  those  four  or  five  years,  such 
as  he  never  had  before,  of  realising^  digesting,  and 
assimilating  in  all  their  fulness  the  doctrines  he  had 
so  long  proclaimed  to  others,  and  Vv^as  thus  enabled  out 
of  the  depth  of  his  ov/n  personal  experience  to  preach 
what  he  felt  and  knew  to  be  true,  the  only  kind  of 
teaching  which  will  ever  be  worth  anything. 

Again,  St.  Paul  designates  himself  the  prisoner 
of  the  Lord  because  of  the  benefits  his  imprisonment 
conferred  upon  the  Church  of  Christ  in  various  ways. 
Take  his  imprisonment  at  Caesarea  alone.  We  are 
not  expressly  told  anything  about  his  labours  during 
that  time.  But  knowing  St.  Paul's  intense  energy  we 
may  be  sure  that  the  whole  local  Christian  community 
established  in  that  important  centre  whence  the  gospel 
could  diffuse  itself  as  far  as  the  extremest  west  on  the 
one  side  and  the  extremest  east  on  the  other,  was  per- 
meated by  his  teaching  and  vitalised  by  his  example. 


454  THE  ACTS   OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

He  was  allowed  great  freedom,  as  the  Acts  declares. 
Felix  "  gave  orders  to  the  centurion  that  he  should  be 
kept  in  charge,  and  should  have  indulgence ;  and  not 
to  forbid  any  of  his  friends  to  minister  unto  him." 
If  we  take  the  various  centurions  to  whom  he  was 
intrusted,  we  may  be  sure  that  St.  Paul  must  have 
omitted  no  opportunity  of  leading  them  to  Christ.  St. 
Paul  seems  to  have  known  how  to  make  his  way  to  the 
hearts  of  Roman  soldiers,  as  his  subsequent  treatment 
by  Julius  the  centurion  shows,  and  that  permission 
of  the  governor  would  be  liberally  interpreted  when 
deputies  from  distant  churches  sought  his  presence. 
Messengers  from  the  various  missions  he  had  founded 
must  have  had  recourse  to  Caesarea  during  those  two 
years  spent  there,  and  thence  too  was  doubtless 
despatched  many  a  missive  of  advice  and  exhortation. 
At  Caesarea,  too,  may  then  have  been  written  the 
Gospel  of  St.  Luke.  Lewin  (vol.  i.,  p.  221),  indeed, 
places  its  composition  at  Philippi,  where  St.  Luke 
laboured  for  several  years  prior  to  St.  Paul's  visit  in 
57  A.D.  after  leaving  Ephesus  ;  and  he  gives  as  his 
reason  for  this  conclusion  that  St.  Paul  called  St. 
Luke  in  2  Cor.  viii.  18,  written  about  that  time,  "the 
brother  whose  praise  is  in  the  Gospel,"  referring  to 
his  Gospel  then  lately  published.^     I  think  the  sugges- 

'  This  involves,  however,  the  supposition  that  St.  Luke's  narrative 
had  then  obtained  its  more  modern  name  of  "  the  Gospel,"  which  is  in 
my  opinion  an  anachronism.  In  the  earliest  writings  which  refer  to 
apostolic  narratives  they  are  simply  called  the  writings  or  memoirs  or 
commentaries  of  the  apostles,  as  in  Aristides,  c.  xvi.,  and  Justin 
Martyr,  Apol.,  i,  67.  In  Aristides  there  is  one  passage  in  ch.  ii. 
where  the  word  gospel  is  used,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  a  special  title  for 
a  book  :  "  This  is  taught  from  that  Gospel  which  a  little  while  ago  was 
spoken  among  them  as  being  preached ;  wherein  if  ye  also  will  read, 
ye  will  comprehend  the  power  that  is  upon  it."     Irenjeus,  III.  xi,  7,  8, 


xxvii.  1-3;  xxviii.  l6.]     IN  PERILS   ON   THE  SEA.  455 


tion  much  more  likely  that  St.  Luke  took  advantage 
of  this  pause  in  St.  Paul's  activity  to  write  his  Gospel 
at  Csesarea  when  he  had  not  merely  the  assistance  of 
the  Apostle  himself,  but  of  Philip  the  deacon,  and  was 
within  easy  reach  of  St.  James  and  the  Jerusalem 
Church.  St.  Luke's  Gospel  bears  evident  traces  of 
St.  Paul's  ideas  and  doctrine,  was  declared  by  Irenaeus 
(Hcer.,  iii.  i)  to  have  been  composed  under  his  direction,^ 
and  may  with  much  probability  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  blessed  results  flowing  forth  from  St.  Paul's  deten- 
tion as  Christ's  prisoner  given  by  Him  in  charge  to  the 
Roman  governor. 

The  Apostle's  Roman  imprisonment  again  was  most 
profitable  to  the  Church  of  the  imperial  capital.  The 
Church  of  Rome  had  been  founded  by  the  efforts 
of  individuals.  •  Private  Christians  did  the  work,  not 
apostles  or  eminent  evangelists.  St.  Paul  came  to  it 
first  of  all  as  a  prisoner,  and  found  it  a  flourish- 
ing church.  And  yet  he  benefited  and  blessed  it 
greatly.  He  could  not,  indeed,  preach  to  crowded 
audiences  in  synagogues  or  porticoes  as  he  had  done 
elsewhet'e.  But  he  blessed  the  Church  of  Rome  most 
chiefly  by  his  individual  efforts.  This  man  came  to  him 
into  his  own  hired  house,  and  that  man  followed  him 
attracted  by  the  magnetic  influence  he  seemed  to  bear 
about.  The  soldiers  appointed  as  his  keepers  were 
told  the  story  of  the  Cross  and  the  glad  tidings  of  the 


is  the  earliest  I  can  now  recall  v/ho  uses  the  word  gospel  in  this 
technical  sense.  lie  speaks  there  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  etc. 
But  this  was  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  second  century.  In  the  year  57, 
when  Second  Corinthians  was  written,  the  word  gospel  was  applied  to 
the  whole  body  of  revealed  tnith  held  by  the  Church,  and  not  to  a  book. 
'  Iren.,  iii.  i  :  "  Luke,  also  the  companion  of  Paul,  recorded  in 
a  book  the  gospel  preached  by  him."  With  respect  to  the  relation 
between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Luke,  see  also  Iren.,  iii.,  xiv.,  xv, 


456  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

resurrection  life,  and  these  individual  efforts  were 
fruitful  in  vast  results,  so  that  even  into  the  household 
and  palace  of  the  Caesars  did  this  patient,  quiet,  evan- 
gelistic work  extend  its  influence.^  Nowhere  else,  in 
fact,  not  even  in  Corinth,  where  St.  Paul  spent  two 
whole  years  openly  teaching  without  any  serious  inter- 
ruption ;  not  even  in  Ephesus,  where  he  laboured  so  long 
that  all  who  dwelt  in  Asia  heard  the  word ;  nowhere 
else,  was  the  Apostle's  ministry  so  effective  as  here  in 
Rome,  where  the  prisoner  of  the  Lord  was  confined  to 
individual  effort  and  completely  laid  aside  from  more 
public  and  enlarged  activity.  It  was  with  St.  Paul  as 
it  is  with  God's  messengers  still.  It  is  not  eloquent  or 
excited  public  efforts,  or  platform  addresses,  or  public 
debates,  or  clever  books  that  are  most  fruitful  in  spiritual 
results.  Nay,  it  is  often  the  quiet  individual  efforts  of 
private  Christians,  the  testimony  of  a  patient  sufferer 
perhaps,  the  witness  all-powerful  with  men,  of  a  life 
transformed  through  and  through  by  Christian  principle, 
and' lived  in  the  perpetual  sunshine  of  God's  reconciled 
countenance.  These  are  the  testimonies  that  speak 
most  effectually  for  God,  most  directly  to  souls. 

Lastly,  St.  Paul's  imprisonment  blessed  the  Church 
of  every  age,  and  through  it  blessed  mankind  at  large 


'  The  subject  of  Christianity  and  the  household  of  Cassarea  would 
form  an  interesting  subject  of  inquiry  did  only  space  permit.  I  have, 
however,  the  less  hesitation  in  passing  it  over  because  it  has  been 
exhaustively  discussed  by  Bishop  Lightfoot  in  the  following  places, 
to  which  I  must  refer  my  readers :  Philippians,  Introduction  pp.  1-28, 
and  in  dissertations  on,  pp.  97-102  and  169-76.  This  is  also  the 
subject  of  an  elaborate  monograph  by  Professor  Harnack  in  the  Princeton 
Revieiv  for  July  1878,  entitled  "Christians  and  Rome,"  with  which 
should  be  compared  Schiirer's  Gcschichte  des  Jildischen  Volkes,  ii. 
506-512,  and  a  treatise  published  by  him  Die  Gcmeindeverfassung  der 
JjiJen  in  Rom.,  Leipzig  1879. 


xxvii.  i-3;xxviii.  i6.]     IN  PERILS   ON  THE  SEA.  457 

far  more  than  his  liberty  and  his  external  activity  could 
have  done  in  one  other  direction.  Is  it  not  a  contra- 
diction in  terms  to  say  that  the  imprisonment  of  this 
courageous  leader,  this  eloquent  preacher,  this  keen, 
subtle  debater  should  have  been  more  profitable  to  the 
Church  than  the  exercise  of  his  external  freedom  and 
liberty,  when  all  these  dormant  powers  would  have  found 
ample  scope  for  their  complete  manifestation  ?  And 
yet  if  Christ  had  not  laid  His  arresting  hand  upon  the 
active,  external  labour  in  which  St.  Paul  had  been 
absorbed,  if  Christ  had  not  cast  the  busy  Apostle  into 
the  Roman  prison-house,  the  Church  of  all  future  time 
would  have  been  deprived  of  those  masterly  expositions 
of  Christian  truth  which  she  now  enjoys  in  the  various 
Epistles  of  the  Captivity,  and  specially  in  those  ad- 
dressed to  the  churches  of  Ephesus,  Philippi,  and 
Colossae.  We  have  now  noted  some  of  the  blessings 
resulting  from  St.  Paul's  five  j'ears'  captivity,  and  in- 
dicated a  line  of  thought  which  may  be  applied  to  the 
whole  narrative  contained  in  the  two  chapters  with 
which  we  are  dealing.  St.  Paul  was  a  captive,  and 
that  captivity  gave  him  access  at  Caesarea  to  various 
classes  of  society,  to  the  soldiers,  and  to  all  that 
immense  crowd  of  officials  connected  with  the  seat  of 
government,  quaestors,  tribunes,  assessors,  apparitors, 
scribes,  advocates.  His  captivity  then  led  him  on 
board  ship,  and  brought  him  into  contact  with  the 
sailors  and  with  a  number  of  passengers  drawn  from 
diverse  lands.  A  storm  came  on,  and  then  the 
Apostle's  self-possession,  his  calm  Christian  courage, 
when  every  one  else  was  panic-stricken,  gave  him 
influence  over  the  motley  crowd.  The  waves  flung 
the  ship  of  Alexandria  in  which  he  was  travelling 
upon  Malta,  and  his  stay  there  during  the  tempestuous 


458  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

winter  months  became  the  basis  of  the  conversion  of 
its  inhabitants.  Everywhere  in  St.  Paul's  hfe  and 
course  at  this  season  we  can  trace  the  outcome  of 
Divine  love,  the  power  of  Divine  providence  shaping 
God's  servant  for  His  ov/n  purposes,  restraining  man's 
wrath  when  it  waxed  too  fierce,  and  causing  the 
remainder  of  that  wrath  to  praise  Him  by  its  blessed 
results, 

II.  Let  us  now  gather  up  into  a  brief  narrative  the 
story  contained  in  these  two  chapters,  so  that  we  may 
gain  a  bird's  eye  view  over  the  whole,  Festus  entered 
upon  his  provincial  rule  about  June  a.d,  6o.  According 
to  Roman  law  the  outgoing  governor,  of  whatever  kind 
he  was,  had  to  await  his  successor's  arrival  and  hand 
over  the  reins  of  government — a  very  natural  and  proper 
rule  which  all  civilised  governments  observe.  We  have 
no  idea  how  vast  the  apparatus  of  provincial,  or,  as  we 
should  say,  colonial  government  among  the  Romans 
was,  and  how  minute  their  regulations  were,  till  we 
take  up  one  of  those  helps  which  German  scholars  have 
furnished  towards  the  knowledge  of  antiquity,  as,  for 
instance,  Mommsen's  Roman  Provinces,  which  can  be 
read  in  English,  or  Marquardt's  Romische  Staatsverwal- 
timg,  vol,  i.,  which  can  be  studied  either  in  German  or 
French.^  The  very  city  where  first  the  new  governor 
was  to  appear  and  the  method  of  fulfilling  his  duties  as 
the  Judge  of  Assize  were  minutely  laid  down  and  duly 
followed  a  well-established  routine.  We  find  these 
things  indicated  in  the  case  of  Festus,     He  arrived  at 

'  The  governors  brought  with  them  regular  bodies  of  assessors,  who 
assisted  them  like  a  privy  council.  There  is  a  reference  to  this  council 
in  Acts  XXV,  12  and  xxvi.  30.  These  councils  served  as  training  schools 
in  law  and  statesmanship  for  the  young  Roman  nobility.  See  Mar- 
quardt,  I.e.,  p.  391. 


xxvii.  I-3;xxviii.  i6.]     IN  PERILS  ON  THE  SEA.  459 

Caesarea.  He  waited  three  days  till  his  predecessor 
had  left  for  Rome,  and  then  he  ascended  to  Jerusalem 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  that  very  troublesome  and 
very  influential  ciiy.  Felix  then  returned  to  Caesarea 
after  ten  days  spent  in  gaining  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  various  points  of  a  city  which  often  before  had 
been  the  centre  of  rebellion,  and  where  he  might  at  any 
moment  be  called  upon  to  act  with  sternness  and 
decision.  He  at  once  heard  St,  Paul's  cause  as  the 
Jews  had  demanded,  brought  him  a  second  time  before 
Agrippa,  and  then  in  virtue  of  his  appeal  to  Caesar 
despatched  him  to  Rome  in  care  of  a  centurion  and  a 
small  band  of  soldiers,  a  large  guard  not  being  neces- 
sary, as  the  prisoners  were  not  ordinary  criminals, 
but  for  the  most  part  men  of  some  position,  Roman 
citizens,  doubtless,  who  had,  like  the  Apostle,  appealed 
unto  the  judgment  of  Caesar.^  St.  Paul  embarked, 
accompanied  by  Luke  and  Aristarchus,  as  the  ship, 
being  an  ordinary  trading  vessel,  contained  not  only 
prisoners,  but  also  passengers  as  v/ell.  We  do  not 
intend  to  enter  upon  the  details  of  St.  Paul's  voyage, 
because  that  lies  beyond  our  range,  and  also  because 
it  has  been  thoroughly  done  in  the  various  Lives  of 
the  Apostle,  and  above  all  in  the  exhaustive  work  of 
Mr.  James  Smith  of  Jordanhills.  He  has  devoted 
a  volume  to  this  one  topic,  has  explored  every  source 
of  knowledge,  has  entered  into  discussions  touching 
the  build  and  rigging  of  ancient  ships  and  the  direction 
of  Mediterranean  winds,  has  minutely  investigated  the 
scenery  and  history  of  such  places  as   Malta  where 

'  Roman  citizens  had  the  right  of  appeal  no  matter  where  they  were 
born  or  of  what  race  they  cam'e  or  how  humble  their  lot  in  life.  Mere 
provincials  devoid  of  citizenship,  no  matter  how  distinguished  their 
position,  had  not  that  right. 


46o  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Apostle  was  wrecked,  and  has  illustrated  the  whole 
with  beautiful  plates  and  carefully  drawn  maps.  That 
work  has  gone  through  four  editions  at  least,  and 
deserves  a  place  in  every  man's  library  who  wishes  to 
understand  the  Hfe  and  labours  of  St.  Paul  or  study 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  We  may,  however,  without 
trenching  on  Mr.  Smith's  field,  indicate  the  outline  of 
the  route  followed  by  the  holy  travellers.  They 
embarked  at  Caesarea  under  the  care  of  a  centurion 
of  the  Augustan  cohort,  or  regiment,  as  we  should  say, 
whose  name  was  Julius.^  They  took  their  passage  at 
first  in  a  ship  of  Adramyttium,  which  was  probably 
sailing  from  Caesarea  to  lie  up  for  the  winter.  Adramyt- 
tium was  a  seaport  situated  up  in  the  north-west  of 
Asia  Minor  near  Troas,  and  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  or,  to 
put  it  in  modern  language,  near  Constantinople.  The 
ship  was,  in  fact,  about  to  travel  over  exactly  the  same 
ground  as  St.  Paul  himself  had  traversed  more  than 
two  years  before  when  he  proceeded  from  Troas  to 
Jerusalem.  Surely,  some  one  may  say,  this  was  not  the 
direct  route  to  Rome  !  But  then  we  must  throw  our- 
selves back  into  the  circumstances  of  the  period.  There 
was  then  no  regular  transport  service.  People,  even 
the  most  exalted,  had  to  avail  themselves  of  whatever 
means  of  communication  chance  offered.  Cicero,  when 
chief  governor  of  Asia,  had,  as  we  have  already  noted, 
to  travel  part  of  the  way  from  Rome  in  undecked 
vessels,  while  ten  years  later  than  St.  Paul's  voyage 
the  Emperor  Vespasian  himself,  the  greatest  potentate 

'  Julius  is  one  of  those  unknown  characters  of  Scripture  about  whom 
we  would  desire  more  information.  He  is  described  as  a  centurion  of 
the  Augustan  band,  which  was  the  imperial  guard,  and  was  always 
stationed  at  Rome.  Julius  may  possibly  have  been  an  officer  of  this 
guard  sent  out  with  Festus  and  now  returning  back  to  his  duties. 


xxvii.  i-3;xxviii.  i6.]    IN  PERILS   ON   THE  SEA.  461 


in  the  world,  had  no  trireme  or  warship  waiting  upon 
him,  but  when  he  wished  to  proceed  from  Palestine  to 
Rome  at  the  time  of  the  great  siege  of  Jerusalem  was 
obliged  to  take  a  passage  in  an  ordinary  merchant  vessel 
or  corn  ship.^  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  prisoners 
were  put  on  board  a  coasting  vessel  of  Asia,  the  cen- 
turion knowing  right  well  that  in  sailing  along  by  the 
various  ports  which  studded  the  shore  of  that  province 
they  would  find  some  other  vessel  into  which  they  could 
be  transferred.  And  this  expectation  was  realised. 
The  centurion  and  his  prisoners  sailed  first  of  all  to 
Sidon,  where  St.  Paul  foand  a  Christian  Church.  This 
circumstance  illustrates  again  the  quiet  and  steady 
growth  of  the  gospel  kingdom,  and  also  gave  Julius  an 
opportunity  of  exhibiting  his  kindly  feelings  towards  the 
Apostle  by  permitting  him  to  go  and  visit  the  brethren. 
In  fact,  we  would  conclude  from  this  circumstance  that 
St.  Paul  had  already  begun  to  establish  an  influence 
over  the  mind  of  Julius  which  must  have  culminated  in 
his  conversion.  Here,  at  Sidon,  he  permits  him^  to  visit 
his  Christian  friends  ;  a  short  time  after  his  regard  for 
Paul  leads  him  to  restrain  his  troops  from  executing  the 
merciless  purposes  their  Roman  discipline  had  taught 
them  and  slaying  all  the  prisoners  lest  they  should 
escape;  and  yet  once  again  when  the  prisoners  land 
on  Italian  soil  and  stand  beside  the  charming  scenery 
of  the  Bay  of  Naples  he  permits  the  Apostle  to  spend 
a  week  with  the  Christians  of  Puteoli.  After  this  brief 
visit  to  the  Sidonian  Church,  the  vessel  bearing  the 
Apostle  pursues  its  way  by  Cyprus  to  the  port  of  Myra 
at  the  south-western  corner  of  Asia  Minor,  a  neigh- 

'  See  Josephus,  Wars,  VII.  ii.  i.  It  was  exactly  the  same  with 
Titus,  Vespasian's  son,  after  the  war  ended.  He  travelled  frona  Alex- 
andria to  Italy  in  a  trading  vessel.     Suet.,  Tit.,  c.  5. 


462  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

bourhood  which  St.  Paul  knew  right  well  and  had  often 
visited.  It  was  there  at  Patara  close  at  hand  that  he  had 
embarked  on  board  the  vessel  which  carried  him  two 
years  before  to  Palestine,  and  it  was  there  too  at  Perga 
of  Pamphyha  that  he  had  first  landed  on  the  shores 
of  the  Asiatic  province  seeking  to  gather  its  teeming 
millions  into  the  fold  of  Jesus  Christ.  Here  at  Myra  the 
centurion  realised  his  expectations,  and  finding  an  Alex- 
andrian transport  sailing  to  Italy  he  put  the  prisoners 
on  board.  From  Myra  they  seem  to  have  sailed  at  once, 
and  from  the  day  they  left  it  their  misfortunes  began. 
The  wind  was  contrary,  blowing  from  the  west,  and  to 
make  any  way  they  had  to  sail  to  the  island  Cnidus, 
which  lay  north-west  of  Myra.  After  a  time,  when  the 
wind  became  favourable,  they  sailed  south-wg st  till  they 
reached  the  island  of  Crete,  which  lay  half-way  between 
Greece  and  Asia  Minor.  They  then  proceeded  along 
the  southern  coast  of  this  island  till  they  were  struck 
by  a  sudden  wind  coming  from  the  north-east,  which 
drove  tliem  first  to  the  neighbouring  island  of  Clauda, 
and  then,  after  a  fortnight's  drifting  through  a  tempes- 
tuous sea,  hurled  the  ship  upon  the  shores  of  Malta. 
The  wreck  took  place  towards  the  close  of  October  or 
early  in  November,  and  the  whole  party  were  obliged 
to  remain  in  Malta  till  the  spring  season  permitted 
the  opening  of  navigation.  During  his  stay  in  Malta 
St.  Paul  performed  several  miracles.  With  his  in- 
tensely practical  and  helpful  nature  the  Apostle  flung 
himself  into  the  work  of  common  life,  as  soon  as  the 
shipwrecked  party  had  got  safe  to  land.  He  always 
did  so.  He  never  despised,  like  some  religious  fanatics, 
the  duties  of  this  world.  On  board  the  ship  he  had 
been  the  most  useful  adviser  to  the  whole  party.  He 
had  exhorted  the  captain-of  the  ship  not  to  leave  a  good 


xxvii.  i-3;xxviii.  i6.]     IN  PERILS  ON   THE  SEA.  463 

haven  ;  he  had  stirred  up  the  soldiers  to  prevent  the 
sailors'  escape ;  he  had  urged  them  all  alike,  crew  and 
passengers   and  soldiers,  to  take  food,  foreseeing  the 
terrible  struggle  they  v/ould  have  to  make  when  the 
ship  broke  up.     He  was  the  most  practical  adviser  his 
companions  could  possibly  have  had,  and  he  was  their 
wisest  and  most  religious  adviser  too.     His  words  on 
board  ship  teem  with  lessons  for  ourselves,  as  well  as 
for   his   fellow-passengers.     He  trusted  in    God,  and 
received  special  revelations  from  heaven,  but  he  did 
not  therefore  neglect  every  necessary  human  precaution. 
The  will  of  God  was  revealed  to  him  that  he  had  been 
given  all  the  souls  that  sailed  with  him,  and  the  angel 
of  God    cheered   and  comforted   him   in   that   storm- 
driven  vessel  in  Adria,  as  often  before  when  -howling 
mobs  thirsted  like  evening  wolves  for  his  blood.     But 
the    knowledge  of  God's  purposes  did  not  cause  his 
exertions  to  relax.     He  knew  that  God's  promises  are 
conditional    upon    man's   exertions,    and    therefore    he 
urged  his  companions  to  be  fellow-workers  v/ith  God 
in  the  matter  of  their  own  salvation  from  impending 
death.     And  as  it  was  on  board  the  ship,  so  was  it  on 
the  shore.     The  rain  was  descending  in  torrents,  and 
the  drenched  passengers  were  shivering  in  the  cold. 
St.  Paul  shows  the  example,  so  contagious  in  a  crowd, 
of  a  man  who  had  his  wits  about  him,  knew  what  to  do, 
and  would  do  it.     He  gathered  therefore  a  bundle  of 
sticks,  and  helped  to  raise  a  larger  fire  in  the  house 
which  had  received  him.     A  man  is  marvellously  helpful 
among   a   cowering   and   panic-stricken    crowd   which 
has  just  escaped  death  Vv'ho  will  rouse  them  to  some 
practical  efforts  for  themselves,  and  will  lead  the  way 
as  the  Apostle  did  on  this  occasion.     And  his  action 
brought   its   own  reward.     He   had   gained   influence 


464  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

over  the  passengers,  soldiers,  and  crew  by  his  practical 
helpfulness.  He  was  now  to  gain  influence  over  the 
barbarian  islanders  in  exactly  the  same  way.  A  viper 
issued  from  the  fire  and  fastened  on  his  hand.  The 
natives  expected  to  see  him  fall  down  dead ;  but  after 
looking  awhile  and  perceiving  no  change,  they  con- 
cluded him  to  be  a  god  who  had  come  to  visit  them. 
This  report  soon  spread.  The  chief  man  therefore  of 
the  island  sought  out  St.  Paul  and  entertained  him. 
His  father  was  sick  of  dysentery  and  the  Apostle 
healed  him,  using  prayer  and  the  imposition  of  hands 
as  the  outward  symbols  and  means  of  the  cure,  which 
spread  his  fame  still  farther  and  led  to  other  miraculous 
cures.  Three  months  thus  passed  away.  No  distinct 
missionary  work  is  indeed  recorded  by  St.  Luke,  but 
this  is  his  usual  custom  in  writing  his  narrative.  He 
supposes  that  Theophilus,  his  friend  and  correspondent, 
will  understand  that  the  Apostle  ever  kept  the  great  end 
of  his  life  in  view,  never  omitting  to  teach  Christ  and 
Him  crucified  to  the  perishing  multitudes  where  his 
lot  was  cast.  But  St.  Luke  was  not  one  of  those  who 
are  always  attempting  to  chronicle  spiritual  successes 
or  to  tabulate  the  number  of  souls  led  to  Christ.  He 
left  that  to  another  day  and  to  a  better  and  more 
infalHble  judge.  In  three  months'  time,  when  February's 
days  grew  longer  and  milder  winds  began  to  blow,  the 
rescued  travellers  joined  a  corn  ship  of  Alexandria 
which  had  wintered  in  the  island,  and  all  set  forward 
towards  Rome.  They  touched  at  Syracuse  in  Sicily, 
sailed  thence  to  Rhegium,  passing  through  the  Straits 
of  Messina,  whence,  a  favourable  south  wind  springing 
up,  and  the  vessel  running  before  it  at  the  rate  of 
seven  knots  an  hour,  the  usual  speed  for  ancient 
vessels    under    such    circumstances,    they   arrived    at 


xxvii.  i-SJxxviii.  i6.]     IN  PERILS   ON   THE  SEA.  465 

Puteoli,  one  hundred  and  eighty-two  miles  distant 
from  Rhegium,  in  the  course  of  some  thirty  hours. 
At  Puteoli  the  sea  voyage  ended.  It  may  at  first  seem 
strange  to  us  with  our  modern  notions  that  St.  Paul 
was  allowed  to  tarry  at  Puteoli  with  the  local  Christian 
Church  for  seven  days.  But  then  we  must  remember 
that  St.  Paul  and  the  centurion  did  not  live  in  the  days 
of  telegraphs  and  railway  trains.  There  was  doubtless 
a  guard-room.,  barrack  or  prison  in  which  the  prisoners 
could  be  accommodated.  The  centurion  and  guard 
were  v>^eary  after  a  long  and  dangerous  journey,  and 
they  would  be  glad  of  a  brief  period  of  repose  before 
they  set  out  again  towards  the  capital.  This  hypo- 
thesis alone  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
indulgence  granted  to  St.  Paul,  even  supposing  that 
his  Christian  teaching  had  made  no  impression  on  the 
centurion.  The  Church  existing  then  at  Puteoli  is 
another  instance  of  that  quiet  diffusion  of  the  gospel 
which  was  going  on  all  over  the  world  without  any 
noise  or  boasting.  We  have  frequently  called  attention 
to  this,  as  at  Tyre,  Ptolemais,  Sidon,  and  here  again  we 
find  a  little  company  of  saintly  men  and  women  gathered 
out  of  the  world  and  living  the  ideal  life  of  purity  and 
faith  beside  the  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Naples.  And 
yet  it  is  quite  natural  that  we  should  find  them  at 
Puteoli,  because  it  was  one  of  the  great  ports  which 
received  the  corn  ships  of  Alexandria  and  the  merchant- 
men of  Caesarea  and  Antioch  into  her  harbour,  and  in 
these  ships  many  a  Christian  came  bringing  the  seed 
of  eternal  life  which  he  diligently  sowed  as  he  travelled 
along  the  journey  of  life.  In  fact,  seeing  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  had  sprung  up  and  flourished  so 
abundantly,  taking  its  origin  not  from  any  apostle's 
teaching,  but  simply  from  such  sporadic  effects,  we 
VOL.  II.  30 


466  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

cannot  wonder  that  Puteoli,  which  lay  right  on  the  road 
from  the  East  to  Rome,  should  also  have  gained  a 
blessing.^  A  circumstance,  however,  has  come  to  light 
within  the  last  thirty  years  which  does  surprise  us 
concerning  this  same  neighbourhood,  showing  how 
extensively  the  gospel  had  permeated  and  honeycombed 
the  country  parts  of  Italy  within  the  lifetime  of  the  first 
apostles  and  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ.  PuteoH  was  a 
trading  town,  and  Jews  congregated  in  such  places, 
and  trade  lends  an  element  of  seriousness  to  life  which 
prepares  a  ground  fitted  for  the  good  seed  of  the  king- 
dom. But  pleasure  pure  and  unmitigated  and  a  life 
devoted  to  its  pursuit  does  not  prepare  such  a  soil. 
Puteoli  was  a  trading  city,  but  Pompeii  was  a  pleasure- 
loving  city  thinking  of  nothing  else,  and  where  sin  and 
iniquity  consequently  abounded.  Yet  Christianity  had 
made  its  way  into  Pompeii  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
apostles.  How  then  do  we  know  this  ?  This  is  one  of 
the  results  of  modern  archaeological  investigations  and 
of  epigraphical  research,  two  great  sources  of  new  light 
upon  early  Christian  history  which  have  been  only  of 
late  years  duly  appreciated.  Pompeii,  as  every  person 
of  moderate  education  knows,  was  totally  overthrown 
by  the  first  great  eruption  of  Mount  Vesuvius  in  the 
year  79  a.d.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  contem- 
poraneous authors  make  but  the  very  slightest  and  most 
dubious  references  to  that  destruction,  though  one  would 


'  The  accuracy  of  the  Acts  in  representing  Puteoli  as  the  seat  of  an 
early  church  has  been  amply  illustrated  by  modern  investigations, 
Judaism  was  flourishing  there  from  the  earliest  times.  In  the  year  4 
B.C.  a  colony  of  wealthy  Jews  was  established  at  Puteoli  (Josephus, 
Wars,  II.  vii.  l).  An  inscription  has  been  found  there  commemorating 
a  Jewish  merchant  of  Ascalon  named  Herod  (Schiirer's  Jiidisch.  Volk,, 
I.  234). 


xxvii.  i-3;xxviii.  i6.]     IN  PERILS   ON   THE  SEA.  467 

have  thought  that  the  Hterature  of  the  time  would  have 
rung  with  it ;  proving  conclusively,  if  proof  be  needed, 
how  little  the  argument  from  silence  is  worth,  when  the 
great  writers  who  tell  minutely  about  the  intrigues  and 
vices  of  emperors  and  statesmen  of  Rome  do  not  bestow 
a  single  chapter  upon  the  catastrophe  which  overtook 
two  whole  cities  of  Italy.^  These  cities  remained  for 
seventeen  hundred  years  concealed  from  human  sight 
or  knowledge  till  revealed  in  the  year  1755  by  excava- 
tions systematically  pursued.  All  the  inscriptions  found 
therein  were  undoubtedly  and  necessarily  the  work  of 
persons  who  lived  before  a.d.  79  and  then  perished. 
Now  at  the  time  that  Pompeii  was  destroyed  there  was 
a  municipal  election  going  on,  and  there  were  found  on 
the  walls  numerous  inscriptions  formed  with  charcoal 
which  were  the  substitutes  then  used  for  the  literature 
and  placards  with  which  every  election  decorates  our 
walls.  Among  these  inscriptions  of  mere  passing  and 
transitory  interest,  there  was  one  found  which  illus- 
trates the  point  at  which  we  have  been  labouring,  for 
there,  amid  the  election  notices  of  79  a.d.,  there  appeared 
scribbled  by  some  idle  hand  the  brief  words,  "  Igni 
gaude,  Christiane"  ("O  Christian,  rejoice  in  the  fire"), 
proving  clearly  that  Christians  existed  in  Pompeii  at 
that  time,  that  they  were  known  as  Christians  and  not 
under  any  other  appellation,  that  persecution  and  death 
had  reached  them,  and  that  they  possessed  and  displayed 
the  same  undaunted  spirit  as  their  great  leader  and 
teacher  St.  Paul,  being  enabled  like  him  to  rejoice  even 
amid  the  sevenfold-heated  fires,  and  in  view  of  the 
resurrection  life  to  lift  the  victorious  paean,  "  Thanks 


'  This  point  is  elaborated  by  Mr.  Cazenove  in  an  article  on  the 
Theban  Legion  contained  in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biografihy,  iii- 
642. 


468  THE  ACTS   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  ^ 

After  the  week's  rest  at  Puteoli  the  centurion  marched 
towards  Rome.  The  Roman  congregation  had  received 
notice  of  St.  Paul's  arrival  by  this  time,  and  so  the 
brethren  despatched  a  deputation  to  meet  an  apostle 
with  whom  they  were  already  well  acquainted  through 
the  epistle  he  had  sent  them,  as  well  as  through  the 
reports  of  various  private  Christians  like  Phoebe,  the 
deaconness  of  Cenchreae.^  Two  deputations  from  the 
Roman  Church  met  him,  one  at  Appii  Forum,  about 
thirty  miles,  another  at  the  Three  Taverns,  about 
twenty  miles,  from  the  city.  How  wonderfully  the  heart 
of  the  Apostle  must  have  been  cheered  by  these  kindly 
Christian  attentions  !  We  have  before  noticed  in  the 
cases  of  his  Athenian  sojourn  and  elsewhere  how  keenly 
alive  he  was  to  the  offices  of  Christian  friendship,  how 
cheered  and  strengthened  he  was  by  Christian  com- 
panionship. It  was  now  the  same  once  again  as  it  was 
then.  Support  and  sympathy  were  now  more  needed 
than  ever  before,  for  St.  Paul  was  going  up  to  Rome 
not  knowing  what  should  happen  to  him  there  or  what 
should  be  his  sentence  at  the  hands  of  that  emperor 
whose  cruel  character  was  now  famous.     And  as  it 


'  This  interesting  inscription  will  be  found  in  Mommsen,  Corpus  of 
Latin  Inscriptions,  vol.  iv.,  No.  679.  I  described  it  in  the  Contem- 
porary Review  for  January  188 1,  p.  97,  in  an  article  on  Latin  Christian 
Inscriptions.  This  inscription  fully  bears  out  Lord  Lytton  in  the 
picture  he  gives  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Vesuvius  and  Naples  in  his  Last  Days  of  Pompeii. 

^  Romans  xvi.  is  a  sufficient  witness  of  the  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
Roman  Church  and  its  membership  possessed  by  St.  Paul.  We  may  be 
sure  that  many  mentioned  in  that  catalogue  written  three  or  four  years 
before  found  a  place  in  the  two  deputations  who  went  to  meet 
St.  Paul. 


"xxvii.  1-3.;  xxviii.  i6.]    IN  PERILS  ON  THE  SEA.  469 


was  at  Athens  and  at  Corinth  and  elsewhere,  so  was 
it  here  on  the  Appian  Way  and  amid  the  depressing 
surroundings  and  unhealthy  atmosphere  of  those  Pomp- 
tine  Marshes  through  which  he  was  passing;  "when 
Paul  saw  the  brethren,  he  thanked  God,  and  took 
courage."  And  now  the  whole  company  of  primitive 
Christians  proceeded  together  to  Rome,  allowed  doubt- 
less by  the  courtesy  and  thoughtfulness  of  Julius  ample 
opportunities  of  private  conversation.  Having  arrived 
at  the  imperial  city,  the  centurion  hastened  to  present 
himself  and  his  charge  to  the  captain  of  the  praetorian 
guard,  whose  duty  it  was  to  receive  prisoners  consigned 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Emperor.  Upon  the  favourable 
report  of  Julius,  St.  Paul  was  not  detained  in  custody, 
but  suffered  to  dwell  in  his  own  hired  lodgings,  where 
he  established  a  mission  station  whence  he  laboured 
most  effectively  both  amongst  Jews  and  Gentiles  during 
two  whole  years.  St.  Paul  began  his  work  at  Rome 
exactly  as  he  did  everywhere  else.  He  called  together 
the  chief  of  the  Jews,  and  through  them  strove  to  gain 
a  lodgment  in  the  synagogue.  He  began  work  at  once. 
After  three  days,  as  soon  as  he  had  recovered  from  the 
fatigue  of  the  rapid  march  along  the  Appian  Way,  he 
sent  for  the  chiefs  of  the  Roman  synagogues  which 
were  very  numerous.^  How,  it  may  be  thought,  could 
an  unknown  Jew  entering  Rome  venture  to  summon 
the  heads  of  the  Jewish  community,  many  of  them  men 
of  wealth  and  position  ?  But,  then,  we  must  remember 
that  St.  Paul  was  no  ordinary  Jew  from  the  point  of 
view  taken  by  Roman  society.  He  had  arrived  in 
Rome  a  state  prisoner,  and  he  was  a  Roman  citizen  of 
Jewish  birth,  and  this  at  once  gave  him  position  entitling 

'  See  for  proof  of  this  Harnack's  article  in  the  Princeton  Revieiv, 
quoted  above. 


470  THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


him  to  a  certain  amount  of  consideration.  St.  Paul 
told  his  story  to  these  chief  men  of  the  Jews,  the  local 
Sanhedrin  perhaps,  recounted  the  bad  treatment  he 
had  received  at  the  hands  of  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem, 
and  indicated  the  character  of  his  teaching  which  he 
wished  to  expound  to  them,  "  For  this  cause  therefore 
did  I  entreat  you  to  see  and  speak  with  me  :  for  because 
of  the  hope  of  Israel  I  am  bound  with  this  chain," 
emphasizing  the  Hope  of  Israel,  or  their  Messianic 
expectation,  as  the  cause  of  his  imprisonment,  exactly 
as  he  had  done  some  months  before  when  pleading 
before  King  Agrippa  (ch.  xxvi.  6,  7,  22,  23).  Having 
thus  briefly  indicated  his  desires,  the  Jewish  council 
intimated  that  no  communication  had  been  made  to 
them  from  Jerusalem  about  St.  Paul.  It  may  have 
been  that  his  lengthened  imprisonment  at  Csesarea 
had  caused  the  Sanhedrin  to  relax  their  vigilance, 
though  we  see  that  their  hostility  still  continued  as 
bitter  as  ever  when  Festus  arrived  in  Jerusalem  and 
afterwards  led  to  St.  Paul's  appeal ;  or  perhaps  they 
had  not  had  time  to  forward  a  communication  from 
the  Jerusalem  Sanhedrin  to  the  Jewish  authorities  at 
Rome ;  or  perhaps,  which  is  the  most  likely  of  all,  they 
thought  it  useless  to  prosecute  their  suit  before  Nero, 
who  would  scoff  at  the  real  charges  which  dealt  merely 
with  questions  of  Jewish  customs,  and  which  imperial 
lav/yers  therefore  would  regard  as  utterly  unworthy  the 
imprisonment  or  death  of  a  Roman  citizen.  At  any  rate 
the  Jewish  council  gave  him  a  hearing,  when  St.  Paul 
followed  exactly  the  same  lines  as  in  the  synagogue  at 
Antioch  of  Pisidia  and  in  his  speech  before  Agrippa. 
He  pointed  out  the  gradual  development  of  God's  pur- 
poses in  the  law  and  the  prophets,  showing  how  they* 
had  been  all  fulfilled  in  Jesus  Christ.     It  was  with  the 


xxvii.  1-3 ;  xxviii.  i6.]    IN  PERILS  ON  THE  SEA.  471 

Jews  at  Rome  as  with  the  Jews  elsewhere.  Some 
believed  and  some  believed  not  as  Paul  preached  unto 
them.  The  meeting  was  much  more  one  for  discussion 
than  for  addresses.  From  morning  till  evening  the  dis- 
putation continued,  till  at  last  the  Apostle  dismissed 
them  with  the  stern  words  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah,  taken 
from  the  sixth  chapter  of  his  prophecy,  where  he 
depicts  the  hopeless  state  of  those  who  obstinately 
close  their  ears  to  the  voice  of  conviction.  But  the 
Jews  of  Rome  do  not  seem  to  have  been  like  those  of 
Thessalonica,  Ephesus,  Ccrinth,  and  Jerusalem  in  one 
respect.  They  did  not  actively  oppose  St.  Paul  or 
attempt  to  silence  him  by  violent  means,  for  the  last 
glimpse  we  get  of  the  Apostle  in  St.  Luke's  narrative 
is  this :  "  He  abode  two  whole  years  in  his  own  hired 
dwelling,  and  received  all  that  went  in  unto  him, 
preaching  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  teaching  the  things 
concerning  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  with  all  boldness, 
none  forbidding  him."  ^ 


'  The  various  biographies  of  the  Apostle,  and  specially  that  of 
Conybeare  &  Howson,  follow  the  Apostle's  history  in  great  detail 
during  these  two  years  ;  but  the  story  of  that  period  more  properly  falls 
under  the  consideration  of  the  writers  upon  the  Epistles  of  the  Captivity 
than  of  one  dealing  with  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  If  I  were  to  discuss 
St.  Paul's  life  at  Rome  I  should  have  simply  to  borrow  all  my  details 
from  these  Epistles,  The  abruptness  of  St.  Luke's  termination  of  his 
narrative  is  very  noteworthy,  and  the  best  proof  of  the  early  date  of  the 
Acts.  I  do  not  think  I  need  add  anything  to  Dr.  Salmon's  argument  on 
this  point  contained  in  the  following  words,  which  I  take  from  chap,  xviii. 
of  his  Introdtution:  "To  my  mind  the  simplest  explanation  why  St. 
Luke  has  told  us  no  more  is,  that  he  knew  no  more  ;  and  that  he  knew 
no  more,  because  at  the  time  nothing  more  had  happened — in  other 
words,  that  the  book  of  the  Acts  was  written  a  little  more  than  two  years 
after  Paul's  arrival  in  Rome." 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Dr.,  Biblical  Essays,  I2,  43. 

Abgar,  King,  53. 

Achaia,  Province  of,  326. 

Achilles  Tatius,  367. 

Acoimetse,    or    Watching    Monks, 

176. 
Acta  Sanctorum,  56,  141,  200,  213, 

247. 
^neas,  97, 
Agabus,    the    prophet,     162,    426, 

434- 
Agape,  399,  400. 
Agrippa  II.,  432,  448. 
Alabarch,  81,  153. 
Alexander,  the  Coppersmith,  378. 
Amen,  Eucharist'c,  396. 
Ammianus  Marcellinus,  152. 
Ananias,  of  Damascus,  53,  54,  55, , 

57,  58,  59,  68. 
Ananias,  the  high  priest,  431,  440- 

443- 
Ancyra,  339,  367. 
Annas,  30. 
Antinomianism,  62. 
Antioch,   (Syrian)  church  of,   146, 

154- 

city  of,  150-13. 

synagogue  of,  155. 

people  of,  and  nicknames,  159. 

of  Pisidia,  198. 

Apollos,  341-43,  347- 


Apostle,  meaning  of,  83,  84,  193. 

Apostolic  Constitt.,  344. 

Aquila  and  Priscilla,  322,  323,  332, 

333.  337.  341,  347. 
Aquileia,  church  of,  247. 
Aratus,  11,  315. 
Areopagus,  court  of,  309-17. 
Aretas,  30,  81. 
Aristides,  35,  214,  318-20. 
Artemas,  bishop  of  Lystra,  213. 
Artemis  (see  Diana),  360,  362,  376. 
Artemisius,  month  of,  362. 
Asiarchs,  375-78. 
Assize  Courts,  382. 
Athanasius,  St.,  301. 
Athenagoras,  Apol.,  282. 

church  of,  321. 

Athens,  topography  of,  312. 

Attalia,  201,  276. 

Augustine,  St.,  Confessions  of,  29, 

286. 

Epp.,  398,  401. 

Aurelius,  Victor,  163. 

Baptismal  formula,  345. 
Barclay,  Robert,  122. 
Barnabas,  St.,  7,  8,  81,  155,  258. 
Baronius,  Annals  of,  259. 
Bartolocci,  Bibl.  Rabbin.,  13. 
Basnage,  History  of  the  Jeivs,  13,  19. 
Baur,  I, 


473 


474 


INDEX. 


Bayet,  De  Titulis  Atticce  CJirisL,  308, 

321. 
Bent,  J.  T.,  374. 
Bernard,  St.,  Life  of  St.  Malachy, 

417. 
Bernice,  432,  448. 
BercEa,  296,  302. 
Bingham's  Antiqq.,  1 76,  396. 
Bishops,  origin  of,  416-18. 
Blomfield,  Bishop,  229. 
Boeckh,   Gr.  Ins.,  Corp.  205,  278, 

300>  363.  366.     • 
Butler,  Bishop,  Analogy  oi,  133,413. 
Butler's  Coptic  Clmrclies,  256. 
Buxtorf  s  Lexicon,  16. 

CiESAR,  Augustus,  273. 

Claudius,  323. 

Julius,  31. 

Tiberius,  36,  166,  185. 

Caesarea-on-the-Sea,  lOl,  147. 
Caiaphas,  30, 
Caligula,  82,  94,  166,  167. 
Calvin's    Commentary    N.T.,    128, 

383- 
Capes,  W.  W.,  The  Early  Empire, 

109. 
Cave's  Lives  of  the  Apostles,   256, 

259.  263. 
Celebrations,  evening,  398 — 401. 
Celtic  language,  264. 
Cenchreae,  332. 
Cesnola,  General,  205. 
Charlemagne,  1 1 . 
Chosroes,  King,  159. 
Christian  Library,  394. 
Christian,  title  of,  159-62,  211, 
Chrysostom,  Dion,  276,  377. 
Chrysostom,  St.,  46,  84,  251,  352. 

Homilies,  55. 

Cicero,  275,  304,  327, 
Circumcision,    controversy    about, 

222,  228. 


Cistercians,  227. 

Cleanthes,  315. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  Pcedagogue, 

180. 

Stromata,  356,  446. 

Clement,  Recognitions  of,  259,  344. 

Homilies,  344. 

Clermont  Ganneau,  428. 
Communion  Office,  rubrics  of,  335, 

336. 

evening,  398-401. 

"  Communicatio  Idiomatum,"  419. 
Constantine,  Emperor,  238,  273. 
Contemporary  Review,  468. 
Conybeare  and  Howson,  St.  Paul, 

46,  57. 
Corinth,  First  Epistle   to,  date  of, 

359.  387- 
Cornelius  a  Lapide,  46. 
Cornelius,  the  Centurion,  chaps,  v., 

vi. 

baptism  of,  140. 

Council  of  Jerusalem,  chap.  x. 
Councils,  histories  of,  219. 
Cramer's  Catena,  46. 
Crispus,  325,  326. 
Cudworth's  Intellect,  Syst.,  315. 
Cyprus,  gospel  in,  196,  201-206,  258. 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  396. 

Damascus,  30,  36. 
Daphne,  157,  158. 
De  Broglie,    L'EgUse  et  I'Empire, 

273- 
Demetrius,  350,  369,  372-75. 
Derbe,  200,  216,  260, 
Derenbourg   and    Saglio,  Did.  des 

Antiqq.,  361. 
Diana  (see  Artemis),  331,  360. 
Didache,  34,  345. 
Dion  Cassius,  163,  204. 
Dion  Chrysostom,  276,  377. 
Dionysius,  Areop.,  317,  318,  320, 


INDEX. 


475 


Discipline,  107. 

Fleury's  Eccles,  Hist,,  246. 

Dods,  Dr.  M.,  Introd.  N.T.,  360. 

Forms,  use  of,  121. 

Dollinger,  Dr.,  145. 

Fox,  George,  122. 

Dorcas,  97. 

Francis  de  .Sales,  St.  279. 

Drusilla,  431,  447. 

Friends,  Society  of,  122,  142, 

T>nhT''s  Journeys  of  Hadrian,  306. 

Duumviri,  275. 

Gaius,  326, 

Galerius,  Emperor,  273. 

Ebionites,  6. 

Gallio,  327-29. 

Eckhel,  on  Coins,  163. 

Gamaliel,  13,  14,  15. 

Edersheim,  Dr.,  14. 

Geikie,  Holy  Land,  38,  101,  119. 

Egnatian  Road,  271. 

German  criticism,  386. 

Elymas,  203. 

Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall,  150,  158, 

Ember  seasons,  194. 

273- 

Enthusiasm,  power  of,  269. 

Gischala,  4,  6. 

Epaphras,  350. 

Gnosticism,  420. 

Ephesian  letters,  355. 

Godefroy's  Comment,   on  Theodos. 

Ephesus,  council  of,  258. 

Code,  273. 

Epimenides,  il. 

Gospel,  slow  progress  of,  269. 

Epiphanes,  Antiochus,  6. 

Goulburn's  Personal  ReUgioyi,  I2i. 

Epiphanius,  in  Corpus  Hoereseolog., 

Guhl's  Ephesiaca,  356,  362,  367. 

6. 

Guyon,  Madame,  446. 

Ethnarch,  153. 

Eucharist,  celebration  of,  393-401. 

Habakkuk,  20. 

Eusebius, //,  £■.,  171,  181,  199,  241, 

Hadrian,  Emperor,  306. 

320. 

Harris,  Rendal,  on  Aristides,  321, 

Eutychus,  403. 

Hatch,  Dr.,  on  Episcopacy,  416. 

Expositor  viii. 

Hefele's  Councils,  379. 

Hegesippus,  241. 

Fabricius,    Biblioth.     Grac,     315, 

Helena,  Queen,  i86. 

367- 

Heliogabalus,  36. 

Farrar's  St.  Paul,  15,  16,  19,  20,  50, 

Hemerobaptists,  344 

SI.  152. 

Hermas,  434. 

Fayum  MSS.,  356. 

Herod  the  Great,  102,  151,  166. 

Fcchin,  St.,  89,  278. 

Antipas,  30,  1 66. 

Felix,  430-432. 

Agrippa,   95,    164,   168,    183- 

Fell,  Bishop,  on  Cyprian,  401. 

187. 

Ferrar,  Nicholas,  176. 

Heuzey,    Leon,   Mission    Archeol., 

Festus,  448. 

274,  281. 

Findlay,  Epp.  of  St.  Paul,  60,  295. 

Hilary,  84. 

on  Galatians,  234. 

Hiram  of  Tyre,  183. 

Fitz  Ralph,  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 

Hogarth,  D.  G.,  261. 

227. 

Holy  Ghost  and  Ordination,.4i4. 

476 


INDEX. 


Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.,  29,  74, 

238, 

Julius,  the  centurion  460. 

396,  419- 

Justin  Martyr,  Apologies,  27,  267, 

Horace's  Satires,  276. 

282,  395,  396. 

Hours,  canonical,  I22. 

Justus,  325. 

Hypaepa,  198. 

Juvenal's  Sfl/iV^s,  152. 

Hyrcanus,  31. 

Keble,  John,  70. 

ICONIUM,   199,  260. 

King,    Rev.    Robert,     The    Ruling 

Imposition  of  hands,  414. 

Elder,  417. 

Incarnation,  delay  of,  99. 

Kitto's  Bib.  Encycl,  16. 

Inscriptions  on  Temple  wall. 

^28. 

Knox,  Alexander,  100. 

Irenaeus,  416-418. 

Kiihn's  yoMr«o/  Comp.  Philol.,  265. 

Irenarch,  216. 

Irish  Academy,  Royal,  89. 

Lacroix,  Manners  of  Middle  Ages, 

Island  monasteries,  89. 

16. 

Italian  band,  103. 

Laymen  in  synods,  236. 

Le    Bas    and    Waddington,     Foy. 

Jailor,  Phillippian,  286-90. 

Archc'ol.,  216. 

James,    apostle   and   martyr. 

168- 

Legions  in  Palestine,  103. 

74- 

Lewin,  Fasti,  31,  60,  163,  167,  360. 

James,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem, 

241, 

St.  Paul,l\,  32,  39,  45,  80,  102, 

426,  427. 

119,  186,  198. 

Jebb,  Bishop,  99. 

Libanius,  151,  152. 

Jerome,  St.,  84,  141,  251. 

Lid  don's,  Bampt.  Lect.,  420. 

Cat.  of  Illust.  Writers,  4, 

6. 

Lightfoot,  Bishop,  on  the  Essenes, 

Jews,  hostility  of,  to  early  Church, 

344- 

212. 

Colossians,  252,  350. 

at  Athens,  308. 

' 

Essays,  96,  300. 

at  Ephesus,  427. 

Galatians,   19,  20,  50,  79,  84, 

Johannes  Scotus,  318. 

247,  251,  264,  266. 

John's  Eve,  St.,  335. 

• 

Ignatius,  363,  378,  427. 

John  Baptist,  disciples  of,  342 

-44. 

Phdipptans,  173,  291-93,  417. 

Jonah,  119. 

Lightfoot,  Dr.  J.,  Hor.  Heb.,  32,  57, 

Jonathan,  30. 

441. 

Joppa,  118. 

Lipsius,  R.  A.,  5. 

Josephus,  Antiqq.,  11,   31,   32 

(   33i 

Apoc.  Acts,  53. 

Journal  of  Hellenic    Studies, 

261, 

Lord's  Day,  observance  of,  393-397. 

26s,  364.  372,  374- 

Lucian's  Philopatris.,  312, 

Si,  95.  102,  185,  428. 

Luke,  St.,  at  Philippi,  391. 

Wars,  95,  102,  428. 

Lycaonia,  language  of,  212,  265. 

Joyce's  Acts  of  the  Church,  23' 

h 

Lydia,  278. 

Irish  Names,  88. 

Lysias,  Claudius,  429. 

Judas,  56. 

Lystra,  200,  212-17,  260. 

INDEX. 


477 


Lyttelton,    Lord,    on    Conver.   St. 

Paul,  40. 
Lytton,  Lord,  Last  Days  of  Pompeii. 

Maanillaiis  Mag.,  377. 
Magic  at  Ephesus,  352. 
Malalas,  John,   157. 
Malta,  462. 
Mandeans,  344. 

Mansi's  Councils,  220,  259,  379. 
Maps,  use  of,  100. 
Marcellinus,  Pope,  144. 
Mark,  St.,  252-54,  256. 
Marquardt,  104,  458. 
.  Marseilles,  374,  390. 
Mason's  Diocletian  Persecution,  367. 
Massutius,  Vita  S.  Pauli,  li,  55,  60. 
Melville,  Henry,  Voices  of  the  Year, 

114. 
Menander,  11. 
Mendicant  orders,  227. 
Meyer's  Theory  of  Baptism,  342. 
Miletus,  405. 

Milligan,  Dr.,  on  Resurrection,  134. 
Misopogon,  159. 
Mithras,  35. 
Mnason,  426. 
Molinos,  446. 
Momtnscn's  Provinces,  96,  103,  150, 

378. 

Corp.  Ins.  Lat. ,28\,  468. 

in  Ephem.  Epig.,  140. 

Monasticism,  Celtic,  88. 
Morinus,  Exerc.  Bibl.,  13. 
Miiller's  Antiqq.  of  Antioch.,  150. 
Museum  Evang.   Sch.   of  Smyrna, 

264. 

Nazarite  vow,  333,  436. 

Neapolis,  272. 

Nelson's  Fasts  and  Festivals,  256. 

Neocoros,  379,  380. 

Nero,  Emperor,  433,  470. 

Nestorianism  258. 


CECUMENIUS,  84. 

Oehler,  6. 

Ordination  and  imposition  of  hands, 

194,  414. 
Ornaments  rubric,  239. 
Orontes,  151,  196. 

Paley's  Horce  Paulines,  291,  360. 
Pangaeus,  Mount,  276. 
Papal  Infallibilitj',  230. 

Supremacy,  rise  of,  144. 

Paphos,  197,  201. 

Paul,    St.,   in   Antioch    (Pisidian), 
206-10. 

in  Antioch  (Syrian),  15 7- 

in  Arabia,  77"9^- 

in  Athens,  305-21. 

baptism  of,  72-77. 

birthplace  of,  4. 

at  Csesarea,  chap.  xvii. 

and  Church  organisation,, 216. 

•  and  circumcision,  225-28,  392, 

435- 

conversion  of,  chap.  ii. 

at  Corinth,  chap.  xiii. 

dispute  at  Antioch,  247. 

at  Ephesus,  chaps,  xiv.,  xv. 

exegesis  of,  18,  19,  207. 

family  of,  7. 

in  Galatia,  263. 

language  of,  9. 

in  Macedonia,  chap.  xii. 

at  Malta,  chap,  xviii. 

martyrdom  of,  246. 

at  Miletus,  405  21. 

on  ordination,  414,  415. 

ordination  of,  chap.  ix. 

at  Patara,  424. 

portrait  of,  51. 

at  Puteoli,  465. 

quarrel  with   Barnabas,   248- 

251. 
and  Roman  See,  246. 


478 


INDEX. 


Paul,  St.,  and  Sanhedrin,  23,  429, 

442. 

second  tour  of,  chap.  xi. 

at  Sidon,  461. 

• speech  at  Apostolic  Council, 

241. 

thorn  in  flesh,  49,  296. 

■ trade  of,  10,  348. 

at  Troas,  268,  392-406. 

at  Tyre,  425. 

voyage  to  Rome,  chap,  xviii. 

Paulinus  of  Nola,  St.,  369, 
Pausanius,    Descr.  of  Greece,    305, 

308,  312,  363,  365. 
Perga,  197,  201,  364. 
Persecution,  religious,  192. 
Peter,  St.,  on  baptism,  140. 

on  the  resurrection,  133. 

sermon  at  Csesarea,  131-41. 

vision  at  Joppa,  chap.  vi. 

in  prison,  174-82. 

Petrie's  Tara,  37. 

Petronius,  95. 

Pfitzner,  104. 

Phalerum,  303. 

Pharisees,  33. 

Philemon    and    Baucis,    story   of, 

213. 
Philip,  St.,  evangelist,  143,  426. 
Phihppi,  gospel  at,  273-89, 
Philo,  14,  19,  23,  96,  307. 
Philostratus,    Life    of  Apolhirtus, 

312. 
Phoebe,  332. 
Photius,  263. 
Pliny,    Epistles    of,    28,    35,    266, 

383- 
— ■ —  Nat.  Hist.,  199. 
Police,  Roman,  216. 
Politarchs,  300. 
Polycarp,  367,  446. 
Pompeii,  466. 
Pontius  Pilate,  30. 


Pork,  use  of,  128. 

Porter's  Damascus,  38,  53. 

Postal  service  under  the  Romans, 

272. 
Prayer,  66. 

Preaching,  decline  of,  409. 
Prion,  Mount,  263. 
Procter  on  B.  C.  P.,  336. 
Prophets,  434. 
Prosbol,  16. 
Proselytes,  lie,  2io. 
Provinces,  Roman,  division  of,  203- 

206. 
Ptolemais,  96,  425. 
Puteoli,  465. 

QUADRATUS,  318. 

Quaresmius,  Eluc.  Ter,  Sanct.,  57. 
Quietism,  446. 

Radzivilus,  Peyegiinatio,  57 
Ramsay,    Prof.,    Hist.    Geog.,    100, 
198,    200,    213,    260,    261,    363, 

364- 
on  Artemis  worship,  374. 

Renan,  215,  369, 

Renaudot,  256. 

Resurrection,  evidence  of,  133. 

Revue  Arche'ol.,  198,  361,  364,  374. 

Roads,  ancient,  37,  260,  271. 

Robbers  and  the  Apostles,  199. 

Ruinart's  Acta  Sincera,  267. 

Sabbath,  16,  397. 
Sabians,  344- 
Sadducees,  33. 
Sadler  on  the  Acts,  289. 
Saint,  meaning  of,  60,  62,  63,  64. 
Salamis,  197. 

Salmon,  Dr.,  Introduction  to  N.  T., 
vi.  I,  413- 

on  Clementine  literature,  259. 

Sceva's  sons,  355. 

Schaff's  Encyclop.,  13,  no,  247. 


INDEX. 


479 


Schoettgen's  Hor.  Hcbr.,  9. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  Holy  Living, 

29, 

Schurer,  25,  431. 

334- 

Seleucia,  157,  196. 

Via  InteUig.,  267. 

Senior,  title  of,  417. 

Tertullian,  ApoL,  36. 

Serarius,  De  Rabbi nis,  13. 

De  Corona,  400. 

Sergius  Paulus,  201-206. 

De  Fiiga,  445. 

Shrine-malvers,  Ephesian,  369. 

De  Pudic,  $0. 

Sidon,  church  at,  461, 

on  Prayer,  122-24,  '95- 

Silas,  257,  325. 

Texier  on  Galatia,  266. 

Silence,  argument  from,  342,  361, 

Thayer's  edition  of  Grimm's 

Lex. 

393- 

N.  T.,  252. 

Simon  the  Tanner,  119. 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  84. 

Singon  Street,  157. 

Theodoret,  84. 

Sinuessa,  Council  of,  144. 

Theodosian  Code,  370. 

Skelligs,  88. 

Theophilus,  30,  32. 

Slavery,  314. 

Thessalonica,  294-300. 

Smith,   Mr.  James,   of  Jordanhills, 

Timothy,  325,  347. 

on  Voyage  of  St.  Patil,  459. 

and  circumcision,  227. 

Smith,  Diet.   Christ.   Biog.,   6,    14, 

family'  of,  8,  9. 

259.  273,  344,  353,  367,  434- 

martyrdom  of,  263. 

Diet.  Rom.  Antiqq.,  104. 

— — •  ordination  of,  261. 

Diet.  Christ.  Antiqq.,  1 76. 

Tozer's  Highlands  of  Turkey, 

294, 

Diet,  of  Class.  Biog.,  213. 

300,  303. 

Sosipatros,  199. 

Trajan,  28. 

Spon  and  Wheeler,  312. 

Trench,  Archbishop,  on  Words, 

159- 

Stanley,  Dean,  57. 

Tridentine  Council,  238. 

Hist.  East.  Ch.,  301. 

Tj^annus,  347. 

Stephanas,  326. 

Stephens'  St.  Chrysost.,  352. 

Ussher's  Works,  318,  362. 

Sterrett's  Epig.  Journ.,  200,  213. 

Stokes,     G.     T.,     Anglo-Norman 

Valens,  Emperor,  352. 

Church,   16,  227. 

Valesius,  439. 

Celtic  Church,  37,  89. 

"Vas  Electionis,"  64,  65. 

Strabo,  199,  204. 

Vatican  Council,  238. 

Straight  Street,  52. 

Vespasian,  Emperor,  460. 

Suetonius,  163,  273,  323,  327. 

Vibius  Salutarius,  Gaius,  370, 

371. 

Survey  of  Palestine,  Memoirs   of, 

Vincentian  rule,  100. 

lOI. 

Virgil,  70. 

Synagogue,  277. 

Vitellius,  30,  33. 

Tacitus,  Annals,  352,  363. 

Waldstein,  C,  372. 

Talmud,  13,  16. 

Way,  meaning  of,  32,  33,  34, 

347, 

Tanning,  120. 

362,  423. 

48o 


INDEX. 


Wesley,  Charles,  381. 

John,  394. 

Whately,  Archbishop,  73. 

Wickliffe,  227. 

Wicscler's  Die  Christeiivcrfolg.  der 

Casaren,  336. 
WilHams,  Dr.,  64. 


Wood's  Ephcsiis,  281,  362. 

Xenoi    Tekmoreidi,    Societies    of, 
364- 

Zeller,  On  the  Acts,  vi. 


THE    END. 


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The  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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